Somewhat new player, brand new poster seeks advice from the Sages..

Allow myself to introduce... myself.

This is my first post to the forums although I have been reading them for a while, ever since I purchased “Small Stakes Hold’em” a few months ago (which is practically falling apart at the seems I’ve read it so much). First off I want to say you guys are a great bunch, I’ve really *Enjoy!*ed reading the wide spectrum of posts on here.

Second, I thought I would humbly step up and share where I am what I’ve done up into this point and see what wise and wondrous feedback I might receive.

About me and current situation: I’m 33, live alone with fairly few expenses (I get by on about $1500/month). Like many I work off and on as a computer consultant. My long term interest in poker is to try to improve my game and bankroll to the point that I can cover these expenses. This would hopefully give me the time and freedom to work on some personal programming projects I’ve always wanted to tackle.

I should state that my well being is not at risk here, I have cash in the bank and my consulting services are in demand enough that I get offers for projects on a regular basis throughout the year. But spending all day architecting and implementing someone else’s programming project leaves me burnt out when I try to come home and work on my own, so this is a low-risk experiment towards achieving that personal goal. I’ve made an agreement with myself to start at the lower limits (.50/$1) and only move up each time my bankroll grows above 300BB for the next higher limit.

I’ve been playing for about 4 to 5 months, many hours a day at the .50/$1 limits. I have finally settled into a “break even” game over tens of thousands of hands at Empire Poker (before party split them off) excluding any promotional money such as bonuses. That tells me that I’m at least above average as I am beating the rake. However, I’m not yet a profitable player (excluding promotional money) at least not by any practical amount. I think this is an embarrassing point for me, it seems as much time as I’ve invested in the game and as much as I’ve read that I would be profitable by now considering I’m playing at such low limit games, I think there must be some principles that I still haven’t grasped, perhaps things such as table selection that aren’t really covered in SSH or perhaps I was just playing at the wrong site.

As a break-even player right now I know I should focus on maximizing any promotional money. I’ve read some posts on here about “building bank rolls for noobies” but it seems things change rapidly and the faq for this forum seemed to encourage new people to post your situation and expectations to seek advice from others. I have used the search tool and bonus whores but it all can still be pretty daunting.

I have created real money accounts at Empire Poker, Party Poker, Paradise Poker (used to play .02 games there long ago but don’t go there anymore) and Interpoker. I have been taking advantages of monthly bonuses at Empire and Interpoker but I didn’t even know there were rake back programs. Looking back on my game history I’ve had a huge amount of money paid in rakes, If I could recover partial rakes along with some more bonus money It seems I’d have a good start towards my goal.

Anyway I think that about sums it up for my first post. Thanks for the great forums and I’d be most grateful for any advice (or notes on what information you need from me to advise) on how to improve beyond my break even game and what I need to know to not miss out on any promotional money.

Keep your paw in the pot,
- HoneyBear