Challenge, step 1

Originally posted by Robbie825
Hey,

I have played freerolls ever since the end of 2008. Every here and there I tried a shot at real money games, but never succesful.

Lately I have been trying to play more for real money, but I only loose.

My bankroll is 66 dollars.

My biggest challenge is to play real money games, but I have no confidence in my game. At the deciding moments I constantly get the bad end of the stick.

Is it wise to play for real money, or should I stick to freerolls? My nickname is King of bad luck. I wonder why.... ♦

What should I do?

define successful. i mean what happens that means you stop playing real money?

and about those deciding moments, there shouldn't be any deciding moments. also, for beginners (by that i mean learners), i don't think we should ever use bad luck/bad runs/bad variance etc as an excuse for doing badly. of course it could be the cause of doing badly at the tables, but these things happen to EVERY player and there should be other things that are within our control that we can learn about and improve. the difference isn't that you lose all the time when it comes to those "deciding moments", it is that you aren't playing well in some way regardless of those bad beats. it's just easier to blame bad beats/luck than it is to blame our own lack of skill edge.

$66 is enough for a losing player to lose for a while on nl2 and then learn how to beat it and that's the worst case scenario. the better case is that you are in fact a winning player already and you now have 33 buyins for nl2 which is well enough to sustain any sort of crazy bad luck that flies your way.

play nl2 with good bankroll management, post hands, read threads/books, watch videos and you will be fine. if you struggle with confidence just keep it simple and don't get fancy play syndrome. anything you're unsure about just post in the forums and learn from it.

gl

[edit] sorry, i thought by "real money games" you meant nl cash games. even so, i'm sure all of the above applies to tournaments-- just start at the lowest limits and learn and work your way up.

Hi Robbie,

You have nothing to fear as long as you stick to correct bankroll management. Bad beats and coolers can hurt quite a bit, but if you think long-term and stick to the games you're rolled for, it should be virtually impossible to go broke.

I say give it a try, and keep your chin up. It can take a while until you see results, but that's normal.

I assume you have already gained some experience if you have been playing freerolls for 5-6 years, but it is still important to keep polishing your skills to gain/keep an edge on the field. What (real money) games do you play, by the way?

Oh, and do I assume correctly that this is supposed to be a blog, or are you just looking for advice on this matter?

Thanks for the advice! Maybe I will turn this into a blog, but I am not sure yet. My self confidence is that low that I don't know I will keep on playing poker.

I usually play tournaments.

Just let me know if you decide that you don't want this thread to be a blog after all, and I'll move it for you.

I assume that you mean SNGs when you say tournaments? It should be pretty tough to grind MTTs with only 66 bucks.
Either way, these formats can be very swingy, so it's quite common to go through a couple of losing streaks. I'm actually grinding SNGs myself at the time, and I seem to be in a similar situation as you recently...

How much experience do you have in this format? Are you familiar with the concept of the ICM? Have you checked out these lessons?

I'd also highly recommend downloading the ICM Trainer, if you haven't already (keep in mind, though, that many poker sites like Pokerstars prohibit you from using it while your client is open). Just keep practicing with this tool until you can consistently score >90% over 100 hands, and you should be good to go.

I haven't been on over here. But maybe I should give it a try again.

Gradually I dumped the NL game. I switched to PLO8.

On PokerStars I have lost nearly all my money. I only had $2.24 left. My challenge is to make this tiny amount into $10.00. If I would go broke, I will deposit ten bucks. Until then I will play with this one BI.

This evening I played for a while, and I won a bit.

Winnings $0.19

Bankroll $2.43

Right before Christmas a little session.

Winnings $1.37

Bankroll $3.80

I didn’t know you had a English blog as well. Good luck

Cheers,
SDK1987