What's Good Information?

[xGoreDudex]

As a person who hasn't been playing poker for a enternity, I find it's tough getting started. I'm not going to pour and rant about how frankly crappy I've been playing. I've read SSH a couple of times, and honestley have about a C- understanding of the material, at the time of this writing, im going to go back and re-read.

Since moving up to .5/1 I havent been playing very good at all. I've been doing a lot of little things wrong, hence leading to a lot of -bb. I do a lot of things well, I anaylze my draws etc. However, I find I leak too much, and definatley show second best hand too often.

I really enjoy playing poker. The frusterating thing is, I'd like to blame my poor results over the last couple of days on "varience", but lying to youself about your capabilities is definatley -EV. I play on Eurobet, its a party skin, so all these "easy" party games haven't hit me yet.

I'm going to go back to the drawing board and re-read some post-flop concepts in SSH and contiune to play, I'm contemplating moving down to .25/.50 where I was smoking it and felt nothing huge. I'm still up a good shot of money from some bonuses, but I'm down money over 3,000 hands at the .5/1 level. Not a huge sample size obviously, but for this level I think a consitant winner would be in the green by this stage of the ball-game, perhaps someone here will correct me.

As far as posting hands, I can't get the [censored] converter to work, I heard by taking out "texas" it fixes the problem, well it doesn't for me... so not too sure about that.

Anyway, purpose of the post was to ask the board what little things a new player can do to add some bb/100.

Currently I am,

Reading SSH (reading #4 starting up)
Hand Histories, going to dig up some hands and see where I'm going wrong.

One positve is I am able to remain fairly calm, I haven't tilted away any bankroll as getting angry isn't going to fix the leaks in my game. I wish it was varience, but something is telling me I have work to do.


G

[Spaderess]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar till:</font><hr />
I've read SSH a couple of times, and honestley have about a C- understanding of the material, at the time of this writing, im going to go back and re-read.


[/ QUOTE ]

A suggestion would be to stop reading SSH (for now) and get GSIH. GSIH teaches some very important concepts in a way that is easy to understand. If you read it and make sure that you understand the concepts, SSH will be easier to digest.

[shermn27]

Although GSIH is probably a better read (I have never read it [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] ) I would also recommend reading ToP. It really covers the most basic poker concepts from top to bottom.

[detruncate]

Poker is hard. Hang in there.

TOP is a great addition to your reading list. It'll help you understand more of the why.

A huge part of learning the fundamentals is experience. When you're just starting out, most of the situations you find yourself in are new -- you spend so much time trying to think your way through "obvious" stuff that there's often not enough processing power to factor in everything. It also takes a while to figure out what you need to pay attention to.

As you go along, you'll find that you're encountering familiar situations more often, especially if you supplement your play with study. Your default plays will no doubt be constantly evolving, but at least you don't have to think each one through from scratch at the table. You'll therefore have more processing power available to deal with specific circumstances. This will improve your ability to make good decisions.

3000 hands might seem like a lot, but it's nothing more than a drop in the bucket. A really small drop. In a freakin huge bucket. Don't base your decision on your results over a sample size this minuscule. You may or may not be a winning player at .5/1, but there's only one way to find out. Dig in and work at it. Even if you're not quite there yet, there's every reason to expect that you can figure it out. If not, whatever. Drop down and rebuild for another shot. You wouldn't be the first person this happened to. I have an aborted move to 1/2 in my history.

The prospect of failure isn't something that should trouble you if you're prepared to deal with the consequences... and there's not a thing to worry about here except a bit of a bruised ego (as long as you play within your roll, of course). There's nothing stopping you from playing sessions at your old limit if you need a confidence boost, but don't let your apparent lack of good results dissuade you from making a real decision.

Can you recognize the mistakes your opponents are making? Do you feel that you can succeed given time? Are you reasonably comfortable with the concepts discussed here? Only you can make the decision, but the bonus whoring opportunities at .5/1 give you a very large cushion, so I'd encourage you to stay up unless you're convinced you're not ready.

The first step is not losing too much money. You've got that one covered. Seems like a pretty good start to me.

Best of luck going forward.