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

[pheasant tail (no 18)]

Perhaps you'd get more response in the micro forum.

Don't worry about going pro yet. It seems like you have a pretty good gig that is part time. As you can see from the amount of effort it takes to get to breakeven in micro-limits, it is very time consuming to eek out profits in poker. And it is certainly not so fun when you need the money and go on a 200 BB downswing. If you have the desire and talent your results will present you with a decision. Until then play w/ confidence, remember that all your decisions matter and bonus whore like crazy. Post in the affiliates forum as to your best strategy about rakeback.

good luck,
PT

[scott2130]

Poker is very situational and a good way to analyze your decisions is for you to post some hands in the Micro-Limit forum. Others can then follow the hand and give their opinions on how they would play the hand. The more specific you can be on your read of other players and what you were thinking when you were playing the hand will help.

Other then that I can only say play tight pre-flop, count your outs, and don't chase.

Good Luck

[CLC]

WOW, so much for the sages!!!!!

Not that I am anywhere near being one, but ...

1) Do tou have Poker Tracker?? if not, then you should get ASAP.
2) Congrats, breaking even is probably less than you want, but a good starting point.
3) Don't go brezerk(sp?) looking for RB and feeling that you must have it on all sites that you play. One good RB site per network is probably more than enough.
4)Be glad that you are coming in with more than a couple thousand hands, otherwise you would be DEAD MEAT.
5)Your game plan about moving up in limit sounds good. Don't move up too fast, rather when you are comfortable. Even if you have not quite reached your 300bb goal.
6)Post in the micro forums and you will get GREAT advise. There might be a FEW smart ass answers, but pay attention to what they are saying and not how they are saying it and you will see the wisdom.
7)I am sure that there are other things to say, but for now GOOD LUCK and WELCOME TO THE FORUMS.

[BigBiceps]

With a name like Honeybear I hope that you are a woman.

Anyway, from my own personal view, there is not much difference between .25/.50 .50/1 and 1/2 .... I think it starts getting a little tougher at 2/4.

With that being said you should be beating the game for at least 1 BB / hour / table. I have not read SSHE, but I am able to beat these games using HEFAP, that I purchased for B&M play 15 years ago.

[gildwulf]

If you are interested in pursuing poker in the long-term I would drop about $200 on books to get you started. Check out the books/publications forum for people's Top 10 Favorites, but you should definitely pick up HPFAP and TOP if you haven't already and read them cover to cover. I regret not doing enough reading early on in my poker career and it cost me a lot of "tuition" in the first few months.

Also, get poker tracker ($55) and PAHUD and start mining. You may not necessarily need the data from PAHUD right now at the early levels, but it is good practice for reading people's stats and for adjusting play to strong reads.

Welcome to the forum.

[Sniper]

HoneyBear,

You should be able to whore around 1K/month by chasing bonuses.

Also, make sure when you signup for a new site, that you get a rakeback deal... see the advertisers here.

Finally, use the strategy forums here and read the 2+2 books to improve your game!

[Sniper]

Sry mike... thought since they were advertisers here it was ok to mention those key information aggregator sites [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm going to go live in the micro limits forums for a while. I've posted my poker tracker stats there and I'm about +.33/100BB of 27k full ring games so far. I'm going to try to whore some bonuses, reread SSH, grab some more books and work on getting my agression up. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]