My 2 years

[jason_t]

I'm glad we've become good friends because I think you're a fantastic and interesting person. I was shocked the first time you mentioned to me your past regarding the bicycles because you're a really nice guy (except when you have KTo and I have QQ and it's my first time playing 9/18 [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]). I remember a month ago when we went out for some food and we're walking down the street drunk and high and just having a great time; we walked by a homeless guy near your apartment and you stopped and offered to bring him back some food. Given the state of humanity, especially in Los Angeles, your selflessness shocked me. The amount of time you've given to discussing hands and the game and my confidence and psychology with me I will never be able to repay. So I will just make a gigantic public thank you here. Thank you. I wish for nothing but continued success for you and hope to some day be able to play (and run) as well you do.

[pfkaok]

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the rest of your post is inspiring and nice, but odn't give advice based on you getting lucky. losing a nice chunk of your roll is devastating, especially if you're taking a shot at a game,w here you have little or no edge.

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agree totally... the post was great, but the shot-taking isn't the best advice for a lot of people. The fact that you often won't have an edge, or if you do its very small is the main reason why i think it can be bad advice for some. its very hard to tell for most people when you have an edge, and damn near impossible to tell just how much of one you have.

Also, as Ed Miller's article this month mentioned, it can be an even worse idea if you're playing for a living, and NEED to be earning at least some $$$ each month.

[Sponger15SB]

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I'm glad we've become good friends because I think you're a fantastic and interesting person.

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I remember a month ago when we went out for some food and we're walking down the street drunk and high and just having a great time;

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So I will just make a gigantic public thank you here. Thank you.

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GET A ROOM!


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I was shocked the first time you mentioned to me your past regarding the bicycles because you're a really nice guy

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Honestly, its hard not to find people who have stolen bikes in IV. I don't steal them because I'm too big of a pussy, but almost every I know has stolen at least one bike. Including almost all the girls I know, my preacher's daughter ex-girlfriend, and all my roomates.

If Carlo ever wants to bring back memories of stealing bikes he can go ahead and drop one off at my house next year, cause I am bikeless after getting 2 stolen this year.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

Thanks for the honest post, but I don't agree with the whole move up thing. There is no advantage to play 2 tables of 10/20 vs 4 tables of 5/10, all other things being equal. Move up when you are skilled enough, and have the bankroll. If you don't have the bankroll, you most likely aren't skilled enough, and on top of it can't take the loss.

On top of that look at your story. Your life basically turned around once you stopped gambling within the brink of death and had enough discipline to play 5+1's, which were within your bankroll. Your friend moved up and suffered bad and almost got destroyed. How can you have this story to tell and come to the exact opposite conclusion is beyond me.

Not moving up fast enough is a problem maybe fifty total members of 2+2 suffer from.

[stinkypete]

i want my bike back bitch.

[ds914]

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i pay back my friend what i owe him and continue playing.

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And all the people you screwed over by stealing from them? How did you make that right?

[CPSUpoker]

do you go to Cal Poly?

[jrbick]

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move up. take shots. figure out what makes these games harder. the experience of losing 50bb at a higher level will help you in the long run.


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This part I have to agree w/ 100%. Granted, I started out at the micro levels w/ a small bankroll (300 bbs for .5/1). My BR grew VERY quickly (more about that later). I moved to 1/2 3x before I finally was able to stay there. Each of the 3x all of my mistakes were magnified due to the larger stake AND it was VERY good for me. Every time I went back and found more leaks in my game (with help) and patched them up enough to be a marginal-winning player. After the 2nd time, I just moved up to 1/2 w/ only 200+ BBs as confidence increased w/ more learning.

NOW... at the same time --

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the thing about poker is it takes over and it wraps itself around our egos. when we run good we think we're the best and when we run bad we suck and should just give up.

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have run good at 10/20 6m and tell people that the game is easy. of course it's easy when you're running hot. people are strange like that.

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I have to agree w/ this as well--

Back to my hot streak at .5/1 (LOL). I was VERY new to poker and hadn't even read SSHE completely (I think I still have tons of work to do) but I still ran a hot 8.xx BB/100 after 5000 hands at .5/1. If someone can tell me how to get a screen-shot of that I'll post it for verifcation-sake.

Anyway, of course this boosted my confidence THROUGH THE ROOF. THIS WAS VERY BAD cuz I really knew about 15% of poker. Losing 3x at 1/2 was the best thing that happened to me because it forced me to be more serious about examining my game and fixing mistakes (I still have a long way to go IMO). It HUMBLED/SOBERED me concerning the game of poker in the short-run.

I have a friend right now who is new to poker. He plays home STT's and plays Party play money. Well, he's often successfull at the home games and has been successfull at play money. He thinks that he is so successfull at these things that he should quit his job and support himself, his wife, and his newborn son by playing the Party 25's and 55's. Why not, he hasn't finished less than 3rd in the play money STT's more than once out of maybe ~20 (yes, he was serious). He is convinced that he is a good poker player. Trust me, he knows VERY little about winning poker. I quickly bombarded him w/ the necessary conversation that would discourage him from this. I bring him up because it is INSANELY scarey how short-term success at poker deceives people with confidence.

Here's where my $.02 comes in -- Sthief posted about this yesterday, and I think it's great. I didn't take it to the extent that Sthief did, but my bottom line was leaving 1/2 when my BR was down to 300 BBs for .5/1.

The key to successful "shot-taking" or "moving up" is just common sense BR management. There's no reason to blow your whole roll at one level when you could just move down a level, crush it all over again while working on mistakes you made at the other level. Even if it was merely variance that destroyed you, make it up at the next lower stake and take a breather.

Klepton, I doubt that you would disagree with any of that. Just trying to balance out the advice presented in this post.

[bobbyi]

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I still ran a hot 8.xx BB/100 after 5000 hands at .5/1. If someone can tell me how to get a screen-shot of that I'll post it for verifcation-sake.

Anyway, of course this boosted my confidence THROUGH THE ROOF. THIS WAS VERY BAD cuz I really knew about 15% of poker.

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Don't take this wrong way, but I assure you that you knew far less than 15% of what there is to know about poker. In fact, there probably aren't many people in the world who know 15% of poker.

[jrbick]

I'm seeing a lot of this: Shot taking is bad, don't do it.

I think if we posted some of Bicyclekick's links in here, people would understand the concept better. IT IS GOOD to take some of you BR and do this. It is TOO easy to become stagnent at one level and to fall into an ABC methodology of play. It's just not good. Sure, maybe you can win like that long term. And maybe some people will be/are disciplined enough to keep working on their game while they are winning a level that they have 1000 BBs for (or whatever it is that they have). But for me and probably most (I'm just guessing), if I'm winning at a comfortable stake for my BR, wtf would I want to study and get better? I'm already winning, so what's the point?

Playing at higher levels will just naturally introduce you to better play from your competition. Why wouldn't you want to challenge yourself like that? The same goes with SH play. I am BLOWN AWAY at the ENORMITY of learning "winning SH poker." My friend estimates that it would take about 80 hours of reading posts here to get a comfortable level of knowledge to start out at it. I probalby won't even begin this until I have a proper BR for it, but when I do, I'll probably have to start playing it and LOSE at it while I'm learning. It's ok to lose... everyone say it together -- it is OK to lose while playing out of your ability-range...

If anything, losing will (hopefully) drive you to learn more and more about WHY you're losing.

Read posts from players about this stuff. I'm not saying go into this stuff blind. I'd rather take the shot and hope to at least break-even and be able to post my own hands to have my thinking corrected; gaining the experience all the while.

After a while, poker is just poker. We have to remember that. Sure, higher stakes -- but still poker.

This LINK is the most insightful one I've read concerning this topic and the "mental edge" part of it (BK calls it the "emotional bankroll"). Read the whole thing, but pay careful attention to the question imposed by MarkD and the ensuing insight. Reason enough for me to want to take a shot at a higher stake.