Reflections on 1 year / 100K hands of online poker (LC)

[sweetjazz]

Hope it's okay for me to clutter the forums a bit with some refelctions on my first year of playing online poker. I am not a pooh-bah and I don't post much in SS anymore, but this forum has been very useful to me in my development. Along with Home Poker (where I posted my first hand on 2+2), HUSH, Microlimits and Mid-High, SS has given me so much to think about and lots of interesting ideas and analysis. Not to much quite a few good laughs.

I hope my story is one that is encouraging to new players and also underscores the importance of studying the game in order to succeed. I have progressed from playing $0.10/$0.20 home games a year ago to playing $10/$20 and $15/$30 games now that I am (justifiably -- I hope!) confident I can beat (though for how much, I don't know).

It was October 25, 2004 that I played my first hand of poker online. I had deposited $100 on Party Poker, with the intention of seeing whether I could beat the 0.5/1 game there. To this point, I had been playing limit HE for about half a year, playing in a $0.10/$0.20 home game that took place weekly or every other week. While the stakes were low and the game was friendly, we all learned a lot from each other. I was fortunate to be playing against friends who were more skilled than the vast majority of players who play on Party Poker.

My requirements before moving up were set at playing 10K hands of the given limit and having 300 BB for the next limit. For the most part, I have strictly enforced these requirements. (I actually played 1/2 when I had > 250 but < 300 BBs.) And now at the higher limits, I generally want significantly more BBs, though I will sometimes take a shot with around 300 BB if the conditions are right and I feel my game is good enough at that point to take a shot.

I played the 0.5/1 game for over two months before I could log 10K hands. Despite still having some significant flaws in my game, my basic understanding of tight aggressive play allowed me to a big winner in the game. I paid off a bit too much when obviously beat and sometimes put in one raise too many with marginal hands, but relentless value betting and basic understanding of concepts like pots odd and pot equity allowed me to beat the game. It's possibly significant that I ran a bit better than to be expected over those 10K hands (in particular, getting dealt KK about 20% more often than I should have, while getting AA and QQ about as often as can be expected). It gave me confidence that I was a winning player and even though I knew my true winrate might not be as high as what I was experiencing, I was certain that the TAG playing style I was developing was a winning one.

In January, I moved to 1/2. I split my 10K requirement into 5K hands of full ring and 5K of 6 max. At full ring, I ran wicked good. In fact, I played 5,011 hands and stopped there so I could keep my absurd 8.15 BB/100 winrate for all eternity. Most of that came during March where I ran at 9.82 BB/100 for the month, playing 5460 hands. Suffice to say, I am nowhere near that good, but it was again helpful to run well as it built my bankroll and increased my confidence. I wonder if I would have maintained my confidence in a TAG style had a run bad and had a winrate that was barely positive or even slightly negative. At the same time, 6 max gave me more problems. This was likely due to just not running as well, but it was fortuituos, because it forced to work hard on developing my SH game. I read and posted on HUSH a lot more, and my postflop took significant strides during this period of study.

By March, I was playing 2/4 and was fortunate enough to keep running well. At the same time, I was a better player than several months ago, even if there was no way to quantify it do the variance associated with winrates.

My shot at 3/6 came in May. At this point in time, there was no 3/6 6max so I was playing full ring. For the first time, I ran bad. I played 6K hands at 3/6 in May and was barely breakeven. It was the first time I had tasted failure over a prolonged stretch. Part of the results were my inability to adjust to the slightly tighter play and the fact that I still had significant leaks in my game, especially postflop. (Another leak was continuing to limp with PPs in early position even when table conditions didn't warrant it. No longer could I expect to collect tons of bets if I did hit my set, and much more often the pot was raised PF.) And I probably just ran a bit bad too, as there were still plenty of bad players so that I can see (now, in hindsight) that even with my leaks I was still a winner in the game.

Things turned around in June, where I ran really good again. I soon moved up to 5/10, playing both full ring and 6max. I ended up playing over 10K hands at full ring and another 10K hands at 6 max. At this point, the competition was getting better. There were more TAGs at my tables, and leaks in overplaying hands against strong players were hurting me more. I learned a lot playing the 20K+ hands that I ended up playing at this level. I also had a lot of huge swings, so I got used to the effects of variance.

I got a job in New Orleans and moved there in mid-August. I ran bad, so to speak, in real life, as I had to evacuate the city when Katrina hit. But in many ways I was very fortunate, as I had friends and family who helped me along, and I have a job and an apartment to go back to. In the interim, I worked on my poker game. I came up with the noble idea that I would donate a portion of what I won to help the relief efforts. As of the end of August, I had $8.5K earned in my Party account. It was also the time where I felt I was ready to take a shot at 10/20.

Things didn't go well at all. I ran bad, probably the worst I have run during these 100K hands. And it turned out I was completely ready for 10/20. Despite great game selection (so that I was probably still a winner at the 10/20 games I was playing in, despite not being ready for them), I couldn't win in the beginning of September to save my life. Soon I was down to $5K in my account and back to playing 5/10. Then came September 22. I won over $2K just in that day, running incredibly good; I started the day at 5/10 and ended it playing in some incredibly juicy 10/20 games. From there, I didn't look back. I have played 10K hands of 10/20 full and 17K hands of 10/20 6max. I now have the confidence that I am a winner in this game. I have learned a lot, but I still have more to learn. I have improved a lot, but still need much more improvement.

Lately, I have felt that it is time to take a shot at 15/30. So far I have had some success. But more importantly, I feel that I am playing my A game and still learning more.

So 367 days and 98,147 hands later, here I am. My $100 deposit has generated nearly $20K in profits for me, playing mostly as a part-time hobby. But more importantly, I am still having fun learning how to play limit HE better. I don't know how seriously I want to play poker, but I definitely want to keep learning.

Anyway, thanks if you have read this far and I hope you found the story entertaining, albeit not very rich in content. I'll try to add just a little bit of content here at the end.

I have played up to 4 tables at a time, but I often play one or two tables at a time. I have learned A LOT more when I am playing a single table or two tables at a time. I think most of my learning now comes when I decide to play one table for a long strech (usually about 4 hours), concentrating on reading the other opponents and thinking very hard what the right lines to take are against this specific collection of opponents. I actually had one of my best sessions last night. I happened to run incredibly well, but I made a lot of decisions that I felt were optimal given my reads. While I still made a few mistakes, I felt like I played some of the best poker of my life. The area of my game that I am currently looking to improve is to make good decisions as consistently even when I am not running good. Some of my bad runs have been compounded to a degree by my feeling of "I'm getting run over so I must call down even though I am being told I am beat". I guess I still have a long way to go, but I have enjoyed the baby steps I have taken so far.