Finally busto

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NewbSaibot United States. Jul 31 2009 00:12. Posts 4948

Man that took long enough. Dunno why I tortured myself for a week with $13 playing 1/2 cent. If I learned anything I learned one thing, which harks back to what caused my inevitable downfall to begin with, and that was table control. Considering I play one-table exclusively, with a limited bankroll, very certain table conditions must exist in order for me to make a profit. If I played with a larger bankroll and more tables I could comfortably play a certain limit and let variance get washed away by statistics. But I dont. I play a high variance style, so I have to do certain things to try and nullify as many other forms of variance as possible, and most of that revolves around table selecting. Whatever the reasons, if a table is looking to be very high variance already, such as maniacs or stations, I simply have to pack my bags and walk away. I have such ego and poker pride that it kills me every time to do this. However considering penny stakes are mostly maniacs and calling stations I gradually became more and more comfortable telling myself out loud "well you're out of position against two crazies and a station. You have lost control of this table." And then leaving. I literally have to say it out loud for it to have any effect on me.

I was approaching the point in my poker career where I was going to have to seriously ask myself "can you do this?". Last month's success put a little glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. This months failure was just a lesson. I have about 1 step left on the poker ladder before I have to admit I'm a losing player, and that step will finally be coaching. I intend to reload myself for NL50 or NL100 and grind one-table again, and if that fails, I will concede that my thoughts on teaching myself a loose aggressive style with a limited bankroll are flawed and not a winning approach to the game, at which point I will then seek coaching and put my poker career in someone elses hands. And if THAT fails, well I'll probably have to hang it up since I will be nearing the 2 year mark and remember Fayth once saying "if you have yet to turn a profit after 2 years, you should quit poker" which I believe. In fact this looming deadline has been haunting me these last few months, since poker has been my escape route to financial freedom which I so desperately desire. I'm sure I'll find a couple of last second excuses to keep me in the game, like giving a serious run for tournaments (I think I have played like 10) or maybe even be a gay SNG grinder. But those endeavors will cost even more money to finance than 6max cash, and I will be starting from the ground up, so add a bunch of training and practicing in the mix and it might just not be feasible.

For the record, my idea on how to make a living at this game isnt to run a roll all the way up to play durrr and ivey. Once I reach a certain threshold I will then go into super bankroll nit mode and do the whole 300 BI thing to maintain myself at a limit which can pay the bills every month. Something like 5/10 or 10/20 should be livable for a one-table grinder (I have to play higher stakes to make the same monthly profits a lower limit grinder can who plays more tables and hands). I'm simply trying to thrust myself out of months if not years of micro stakes grinding and get to a limit where I can sustain my livelihood quick. Im not too worried about the experiences I'll miss at micro stakes (i have like 100,000 hands at them anyway) as I consider them a total joke anyway and offer nothing to a high stakes pro, not even discipline. The high stakes games are so radically different from micro stakes the two cant be compared imo, so I consider it a waste of time. Basically I'm using my real-life income to finance my poker career rather than using my poker bankroll to finance my poker career.

No interesting graphs to post, my last blog showed my losing sessions and I never recovered so minus another 50 bucks off the top and im officially at 0.

On a side note, I think i might move back to stars. FTP rakeback just turned out to be a big "meh" for me. The most I ever got was like $80 in one week and that was when I was playing 2/4. That is about the size of your average turn bet or flop cbet, so the way I see it, who gives a shit. A months worth of rakeback playing one-table is passed around every 5 minutes just playing normal everyday poker. Plus I am a little bit ticked that I got offered such a weaksauce bonus when other people are getting $500. So fuck it. I kinda miss stars anyway.

0 votes

bye now

Last edit: 31/07/2009 00:18

Jonoman92 United States. Jul 31 2009 00:24. Posts 280

I don't see why you wouldn't play at least 2 tables. I mean it's not like you can do in depth character study to learn a person's read from looking at their screen name. I bet the boredom might result in worse playing even. Also, why avoid maniacs? Just be patient with them and bust them when you hit something big (not saying this works vs good LAGs, but it does vs clueless shovers.)

~~sMi.Arcology SC For Life!

NewbSaibot United States. Jul 31 2009 00:29. Posts 4948

Well playing one table waiting on a hand to bust a maniac with gets pretty boring. And sometimes youre gonna lose to said maniac, and I cant really afford to be losing a stack from a bad read or suckout. I prefer a more steady income at the table, chipping my way up with lots of iso raising, blind stealing, and light cbetting.

And believe it or not, but I can really engross myself in a single table at a time. I have even made a couple of videos of myself for fun and my voice was sore by the time it was over, I never once stopped blabbing about my perceptions of players and analysis of hands I'm not even a part of, etc etc. It's really pretty similar to playing live actually, you find shit to think about.

Whenever I play as few as even two tables, I'll find myself staring intently talking about table #1, only to glance over at the hand history hud on table 2 and see like 3 showdowns that passed in 100BB pots and just be like "goddamnit how did I miss all that?". Then ill go filtering through the HH's and start missing action back on table 1 etc. I really just suck at multi-tasking.

bye now

Last edit: 31/07/2009 00:31

Gsr_01_integ United States. Jul 31 2009 00:43. Posts 826

seems like the main prob is bankroll management...one table with a loss aggro style is sure to bust everytime

losing less is winning

terrybunny19240 United States. Jul 31 2009 01:09. Posts 13829

seriously you make me chuckle quite a bit.

I don't understand why you don't "get" how poker works after playing for soooo long.

Really, if you want to be a 1table grinder you should move close to a large poker-playing casino. Though I absolutely don't recommend this to you because I don't think you're ready to beat 1/2 live yet.

k2o4 United States. Jul 31 2009 01:16. Posts 4803

just read your last like, 6 blog posts, which considering their length means I spent a while reading your blog =)

And after reading them I'm not at all surprised that you're busto. It was an interesting idea but I don't think you're approaching things the right way at all. As for the 1 table idea, I don't hate it but I also think that if you're really trying hard you can do at least 2 if not 3 tables and still pay just as much attention and get just as in depth of reads, etc.

I think your long blogs are a great indication of how you'd play at the table - major FPS. And like someone said in an earlier blog post of yours, the regs will figure you out soon enough. I think your winning month was mostly a heater + a small sample where people didn't get to really figure you out. Once the regs get enough hands on you I'm betting they'd start pwning you up, heh.

GL in your journey, I will definitely keep reading. Hell, maybe you will prove me wrong, but I doubt it. Volume is key and while I agree that 24 tabling doesn't allow you to learn much, 6 tabling will let you get into more situations more quickly and still pay lots of attention. I think I had to play about 500k hands before my poker instinct really started kicking in solidly. I did a bit too much mass grinding so I'm sure it coulda been done in less hands but probably about the same time frame.

Now I'm rambling, so I will just say GL!

InnovativeYogis.com

terrybunny19240 United States. Jul 31 2009 01:24. Posts 13829

So yeah, I've been in a bit of a flaming mood lately so I haven't been really constructive but jesus christ..

k2o4 basically told you what you need to know, though. And yes you have the sickest FPS I've seen.. well except for this regfish I play with at 2/5, but luckily he has a decently paying job to fund his regular busto-ness.