- 15.12.2013, 21:50
- This post has been edited 12 time(s), it was last edited by Jehryn: 15.12.2013 22:08.
Hello everyone,
Welcome to my blog dedicated to my new start in poker
About me
I'm a 31 year old Belgian expat living in Paris and working in Finance. I started playing a number of years ago with Pokerstrategy and the the wildy popular Short Stack Strategy. I played NL5-NL100 and some SNG's but I got frustrated with the endless downswings and I quit poker to go play Starcraft II
But now I'm BACK !
What Poker is about
In the last weeks I read several poker books to prepare myself for the tables and I read one sentence by Blackrain79, the famous micro-crusher, that really stunned me:
A general sentiment with new poker players (like myself) is that we really complain downswings of 5000 hands were we just get bad beats and coolers, in the extreme case we rage about a 10k hands downswing like its the end of the world. But it isn't, its normal. When the minimum sample size to somwhat safely ascertain your true winrate is 100.000 hands, what point is there in raging about a few hands?
But that is exactly what I did and why I failed at poker. With a barely positive winrate I multitabled (16+) like crazy, chasing RB and deposit bonussen on every poker room in existence. And everytime a little bad luck pushed my winrate close to zero I tilted and raged until it became minus 100bb/100hands while blaming everything expect myself.
A second line in the book of Blackrain79 also stood out for me:
If you have a true winrate of 10 bb/100 and a massive downswing cuts away 8bb, you're are still in the green. As absurdly stupidly obvious this sounds, making a high winrate at a specific limit your overaching goal is not something I ever considered. All I cared about was building a Bankroll big enough to climb the limits as long as my winrate wasn't negative.
But this excarbates swings which in turn negatively impact you mental condition which in turn leads to permanent hard tilting and an even bigger downswing.
Principles
For those that actually read all that rambling
, from this I formulated some principles which I will try to follow:
1. Every limit need to be crushed before moving higher and this can only be proven over a sufficiently long sample size
2. Good BRM is an essential but not sufficient requirement for advancing in Poker. Only true skill translated in your winrate is.
3. I will not chase RB/Bonusses, for they lead to mindless grinding which will inhibite the growth my poker skills.
Goals
My old BR on Skrill is still at 1400$, I transfered 500 EUR to Unibet to start playing NL10. I will first establish that I can still beat NL10 before moving on higher up. So my goals for the coming 3 months are:
Play 50k hands on NL10
Post 10 hands a week for analysis
Read/Watch 3 articles/video's a week
Achieve a consistent winrate of 10 BB/100
That's all for my first post, see you at the tables
Welcome to my blog dedicated to my new start in poker
About me
I'm a 31 year old Belgian expat living in Paris and working in Finance. I started playing a number of years ago with Pokerstrategy and the the wildy popular Short Stack Strategy. I played NL5-NL100 and some SNG's but I got frustrated with the endless downswings and I quit poker to go play Starcraft II
But now I'm BACK !
What Poker is about
In the last weeks I read several poker books to prepare myself for the tables and I read one sentence by Blackrain79, the famous micro-crusher, that really stunned me:
I do not understand the short run in poker. I only understand the long run. In the long run I win. In the short run I have no idea what is going to happen. And I just have to accept that.
A general sentiment with new poker players (like myself) is that we really complain downswings of 5000 hands were we just get bad beats and coolers, in the extreme case we rage about a 10k hands downswing like its the end of the world. But it isn't, its normal. When the minimum sample size to somwhat safely ascertain your true winrate is 100.000 hands, what point is there in raging about a few hands?
But that is exactly what I did and why I failed at poker. With a barely positive winrate I multitabled (16+) like crazy, chasing RB and deposit bonussen on every poker room in existence. And everytime a little bad luck pushed my winrate close to zero I tilted and raged until it became minus 100bb/100hands while blaming everything expect myself.
A second line in the book of Blackrain79 also stood out for me:
One of the biggest benefits of a high winrate is the noticable lack of large downswings
If you have a true winrate of 10 bb/100 and a massive downswing cuts away 8bb, you're are still in the green. As absurdly stupidly obvious this sounds, making a high winrate at a specific limit your overaching goal is not something I ever considered. All I cared about was building a Bankroll big enough to climb the limits as long as my winrate wasn't negative.
But this excarbates swings which in turn negatively impact you mental condition which in turn leads to permanent hard tilting and an even bigger downswing.
Principles
For those that actually read all that rambling
, from this I formulated some principles which I will try to follow:1. Every limit need to be crushed before moving higher and this can only be proven over a sufficiently long sample size
2. Good BRM is an essential but not sufficient requirement for advancing in Poker. Only true skill translated in your winrate is.
3. I will not chase RB/Bonusses, for they lead to mindless grinding which will inhibite the growth my poker skills.
Goals
My old BR on Skrill is still at 1400$, I transfered 500 EUR to Unibet to start playing NL10. I will first establish that I can still beat NL10 before moving on higher up. So my goals for the coming 3 months are:
Play 50k hands on NL10
Post 10 hands a week for analysis
Read/Watch 3 articles/video's a week
Achieve a consistent winrate of 10 BB/100That's all for my first post, see you at the tables
Mine is at 
Q
(€0.65, 2 players) 