My 2 years

[Klepton]

so august 1st was the end of my second year as a poker player. sadly, it was the end of my first year of being a winning player.

i was a losing player at poker for an entire year. i thought i was a winning player. i read HPFAP, but didn't understand it at all. i would go to chumash casino with my roomate and we would play 4-8 with 100 bucks. one bad beat later and 2 missed flops and i would have 2 BB left. then raise any ace allin and lose cuz the flops were 4-6 handed.

i lost about 3000 and owed my roomate about 1500 (he was a small winning player and could afford to laon me money).

I started doing things I'm not proud of. I stole, a lot. Mainly bikes left unlocked at random places on campus. i'd resell em to friends for 30-40 bucks. that year i stole in excess of 40 bikes.

I would scrape together any money possible and drive alone to the casino, lose in about 2 hours, and go back home. sometimes it would take me 8 hours to lose. i would come back at 4-5 in the morning and not go to class.

then i got kicked outta school.

In april, i found a site caled futureme.org and sent myself a letter for one year later. Here was the letter:

[ QUOTE ]
(this message was composed on Tue, Apr 6, 2004)

Dear FutureMe,
I hope you're succesful, because you were just kicked outta college. You have 2 jobs right now and are trying to get back in. I'm trying to quit poker right now, cuz as you remember it was devistating to you.

[/ QUOTE ]

summer came, and i had no future. i put 100 bucks into party, and played 2-4 with 50 bucks. a week later it was gone. i re-bought again. ran in up to 500, then lost it. this time, i rebought and said i would only play 5+1s.

3 months later i'm 4 tabling the 55's and i have about 2000. i pay back my friend what i owe him and continue playing.

then i find twoplustwo.com
(actually shant found it)

i go look at mid-high stakes and read a post by a guy called mike l. it's a 100-200 hand. he river check-raise bluffs with Ace high and is called by pocket 4s on a board of 7733Q.

i fell in love

i lurked for about 2 months before making an account. i named myself klepton to remind myself of the wrong ideals i once had. by this time i had read SSH and had about 2000. i started 4 tabling 3-6 with no reads, no PT. i read almost every single small stakes hand possible, and read every mid-high stakes hand. every other post talked about the glory of the 15/30, and then i found PT.

on august 1st i started a pokercharts account and started to log everything. all i knew was i had to get ot the 15-30 as fast as possible, especially with a new post every other day asking the question "is the 15-30 drying up [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]??"

january hit and my roll was 6k. i started playing 5-10. worst 2 months of my life. all i did was grit my teeth at the screen and playing 1500 hand sessions to get un-stuck.

by march i had 10k, and decided it was time for the 15-30. my first 1500 hands of 15-30 i lost 4000. i opened up PT and literally went over every hand i played to see what i was doing wrong. aside from one hand where i bluff raised the river on a missed flush draw, i was playing perfectly.

by may i had 22k, and then the party 30-60 tables opened up.

cha-ching.

so now it's august, and i'm trying to think about the things i've done to get here. i don't post as many hands as pokerbob, and i don't analyze extremely deeply as jason_t does, i just do whatever i can to learn as much as i can from the game.

and yes, i ran extremely well. the first 20 days of may was one entire winning streak. am i the second coming of bicyclekick? no. but i did move up.

and that's why i made this post.

move up.

if you have 500bb at your current level, take 50BB and two-table a higher level. hell, take 25bb and take a shot at a juicy table. the play between levels only increases slightly. sure there's a difference between 3-6 and 15-30, but there's not a gigantic difference between 2-4 and 3-6, or 10-20 and 15-30. the only difference is your confidence.

now i'm not advocating playing out of your bankroll. and i'm not saying if you're a 2-4 player take 750 and one table 15-30. i'm saying the minute you spend about 2000 hands at a level you win be immediatly comfortable. even if you are losing, you come onto 2p2, post a couple hands, no matter if you played them horribly or perfect, you're confidence is gonna boost tremendously

shant started playing 2-4 when i was at the 3-6 level. one month ago, shant was at 5-10 SH. he was on the worst run of his life...about 2 months of break even poker. but rakeback is nice. he had enough to take a shot at 10-20. his confidence is so high now he doens't even complain about anything anymore. he's playing 15-30. in 2 months he'll be at 30-60.

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.

i'm happy that i didn't quit poker. i'm happy that i moved up and took shots. i'm happy i'm not a klepto anymore.

[imported_CaseClosed326]

Very interesting story. Sorry you had such a brutal run in the begining. I can't believe you stuck with it.

[Yeti]

Great post.

[baronzeus]

Much more respect for you now.

Glad to hear you've turned it around.

[smartalecc5]

Nice post, but I can't help but asking - did you ever got caught stealing a bike?

[spaminator101]

very happy for you

[Klepton]

[ QUOTE ]
Nice post, but I can't help but asking - did you ever got caught stealing a bike?

[/ QUOTE ]

i was trying to keep this post serious, but i guess i could tell you some stories of bike stealing.

most people dont lock their bikes and just keep them in the back of their houses. so after a night of drinking one of my friends would keep watch while i searched for an unlocked bike. i found one, and started walking it with me along the edge of the house. all of a sudden a guy pops out from around the corner with a girl, and it looks like he's gonna get some upstairs.

he sees me and the bike and goes "hey, that's my bike." all calm as can be, probably to not freak out the girl.

i go "what, this is my bike i left it here at matt's (total bs) house"

he goes "no dude, this is my bike, how unfortunate for you."

that line cracked my friends up for days, but after he said that, i said "fine i'll just pick it up tomrorow if you're gonna get all weird on me."

i walked about 10 feet and then we bolted. problem solved.

[sthief09]

you got luck to have run well and shouldn't be advising people to do the same. the opposite can happen too. I took a shot at 30/60 over the last 2 days and dropped 100 bets in 1000 hands. those things can happen. you are lucky to have run well to start. it doesn't mean everyone should do what you did. it took me a lot of time to build up $6000 at 10/20 only to lose it in 1000 hands at 30/60. it sucks.


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. when we take a shot and get lucky, everyone should take a shot. when we lose people should be conservative. when it comes down to it, you're on a high and are making recommentations made on a sample of 1, which is you getting lucky. bk made a post about this a while back asking why low limit players haven't moved up. kurosh made a post saying how easy shorthanded games are and how he'll never play full again AFTER ONE SESSION. I 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.

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.

now also consider you've played 40k hands. at that game that's gotta have a SD of like 20 or 22, so you're looking at a SD of 1 over your sample. it's extremely volatile. so as good as you've run, you can run just as bad.

[mdeck]

I liked the story, and it's good advice. I'm a nit and have the bankroll for 10/20, but continue to force myself to play 3/6 because I only have 8k hands at 3/6 and 4k at 5/10 (and I'm a nit). I think I will it's +EV for me to take a shot at 10/20, but I haven't yet brought myself to do it.

[PokerMike]

Great great post. Especially the part about how you're running affecting your outlook on poker. I feel as though i'm a very very logical person, but i've caught myself thinking strange things depending on how my swings are going. The 30 game is no walk in the park, especially with the 20SD that comes along with it.