Near the end of my brief Online career -Whine

[BillsChips]

Fair comments and I appreciate them. I'm around 10k hands.

Don't understand the Weak-Tight comment though. Were you referring to my not slow-playing sets? Every book I've read says that's a bad play except occasionally in very uncoordinated flops. Not that it mattered, because I lost with most of them anyway, playing them aggressively.

Haven't seen any "Swings" yet, just losses. I started playing .25/.50 but wasn't making progress against the bonus. Moved up to .50/1.00 and then Absolute changed their raked-hand requirements from .25 to .50, which was nearly impossible to clear at that level. Moved to 1/2 to clear the bonus, which I did in about a week. Briefly tried 3/6 and had some success, but knew I didn't have the BR to continue.

As far as the $95 BR, I don't really look at it like that. I played break-even poker and cleared the $190 bonus. So my problems actually started when I had nearly a $300 BR...not optimal for 1/2, but seemed to be adequate.

I think a 150 BB downturn is significant.

I didn't mean this thread to be "Oh, poor me, look at my bad luck". Yes I've had some bad luck, but I'm not sure that with the tightness + rake of these games, that they can be very profitable, even if my luck changes.

what u got2 understand is that online-poker is getting much harder to beat, as time goes by. I've noticed over the last 6 months(300,000 hands) my win rate has decreased and I've improved quite a bit in that time. Its all the new books and information about.
In 5 years from now low limit poker will be domminated by chinese and indians grinding it out for $5 a day (which will be good money for them)
Best to stick to home games.
Good luck

[SheridanCat]

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Don't understand the Weak-Tight comment though. Were you referring to my not slow-playing sets?


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I'm very sorry about this. I wrote my reply in haste and misread that sentence.

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I think a 150 BB downturn is significant.


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It's painful, sure, but it's not terribly uncommon. You will experience these down turns if you keep playing. The trick is to weather them without driving yourself nuts.

Again, sorry for misreading earlier. Stick with it.

Regards,

T

I was in a similiar spot like this at the end of September. I had through June and July deposited a total of 600 bucks and towards the end of Sept I was down to 14 bucks in my account! Since then I changed games, from NL to Limit. In a month of playing that I went up to about 150 or so and then played a couple of 5 buck MTTs and ended up placing 4 and 5 in two of them and now have almost won back what I have deposited.

Moral: even though things look bleak you still can do it. You might want to look into changing what game you are playing and moving down levels.

[BillsChips]

Update:

I dropped down to .10/.20 because that's all my BR can take now. The Poker gods have had a nice joke with me. Last night my luck turned around I had a 50BB profit. The joke is that at .10/.20 that is only 10 bucks! I was hitting almost all of my draws, my big pocket pairs were holding up...everything that wasn't happening at the higher limits. I guess I'll grind out the micro limits until I get back where I started.

Question:
I just started poking around with PokerTracker and found the following to be interesting. Looking at the profit/loss by position report, I'm ahead in every position except the blinds. In the big blind, my forced bet amount is $650 and my total loss for that position is $320. So in the blinds I lose about 50% of the money I'm force to put in. What should this ratio be? Is this a leak or is that typical? The small blind numbers were much lower and the loses were mostly insignificant. If I could only avoid the blinds this game would be easy. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[SheridanCat]

What you're seeing is very typical. You will always be a loser in the blinds. I see the same things in my stats as well over a much larger number of hands. Looking at those numbers along with the rake you paid can be really depressing.

Congrats on the win.

Regards,

T

[aargh57]

It sounds like you've got a pretty good attitude about this despite losing. Dropping down to fit your bankroll is a good step. One question though. If you've been successfull at 10/20 for two years why not have a bigger online bankroll than what you bought in for. Surely you don't sit down at a live 10/20 game with only $100 in your pocket. Also, if you're new to playing online I would've gone to an easier site to start out with than absolute.

[BillsChips]

Regarding the small BR:

This is the way I approach every venture in life. Start small and test the waters, then increase the investment if it shows promise. This may not be the correct approach for Poker.

Another reason is that my BR for live play is in cash, so my wife doesn't need to be intimately involved in the details of how much money is involved. The deposit mechanism for Online play however, shows up on the credit card statement and thusly is more overt. Not that she would mind, but that would give her license to spend even more than she does now.

My plan was to withdraw $200 from Absolute and take a stab at other sites, but I played a few too many sessions and now that's on hold.

I'll be heading up to Foxwoods next week. If I do well, I might throw some more money at online poker and give Party a try.

Bill

[aargh57]

I see your reasoning for the small BR and I also started with a much too small BR for my limits. Luckily I never had a big downswing in the beginning and was able to make a go of it. Stick with it, if you do well at foxwoods, throw some more in it and play to whatever BR you have. Good luck.

[ QUOTE ]
As far as the $95 BR, I don't really look at it like that. I played break-even poker and cleared the $190 bonus. So my problems actually started when I had nearly a $300 BR...not optimal for 1/2, but seemed to be adequate.

I think a 150 BB downturn is significant.


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A 150 BB downturn IS significant.

The problem is that as soon as you cleared the bonus, you should have dropped back down to .5/1 because that is the highest level your bankroll can afford.

Then, if you had hit a 150BB downturn, you would still have $150 - at which point you would then drop again down to .25/.5.

But because you did not properly manage your bankroll, you now find yourself forced to play .10/.20.

I started with $150 playing at .25/.5 - I got up to $300 and then took out my original $150 and stayed at .25/.5 - then got up to about $400 and went up to .5/1 - now I am back down to about $200 after cashing out another $80 (so about a 120BB downturn) and I am dropping back down to .25/.5.

The thing to keep in mind is that poker is a life-long endeavour - its not like you have to retire at 35. So play it that way.

Bankroll dictates level - this is the best way to play because it forces you to WIN your way to higher levels - and as such, you will tend to find yourself at the level that approximates your level of skill.