How I got into Poker - Part Three

Happy New Year Everyone!! Technically its not actually New Year yet but I thought I'd get this out of the way before I get totally inebriated. I'll be spending a quiet night in tonight watching Sky Movies and working my way through a crate of budweiser, a litre of vodka and a box of heroes. Usually I go out on NYE and this will be the first one that I've just sat in and chilled out, although I might play a bit of poker...

But now back to my story of how I got into poker.

After watching Ed Miller's video series ('Poker Made Simple') on Stoxpoker I managed to build up my bankroll on Fulltilt from $49 to $300 after a couple of months or so. It was at this point that I became aware of Rakeback and Prop Playing. Prop players are players that are paid, via very generous rakeback, to play on websites. Rake is how poker sites make their money, usually around 5% of each pot is taken away as rake, so if you win a pot of $10, the site will take 5% (50c) as rake. However a site will pay you some of your rake back to you if you sign up through certain websites, so that if you pay $100 in rake, you will get a certain percentage back (eg 30% will give you $30 back). Normally a website will offer around 30% rakeback to play on their site, and will pay your rakeback on a weekly or monthly basis. For prop players websites will offer a higher percentage, from 75% to 110%. However these websites tend to be smaller operations with a limited choice of tables to play on, but on the plus side tend to have very bad players on them. So I joined a site called Pokertime as a prop. I only lasted a week as I wasn't really properly bankrolled to play as a prop effectively. I took just one bad beat, but it was enough to destroy my bankroll. It was a $170 pot after flopping the second nuts straight, but my opponent had flopped the nuts straight and that one hand nearly halved my original bankroll. As a result I quit Pokertime and after I received my rakeback I decided to move on and just get a normal rakeback deal. If I had won that pot.... well who knows?

After my brief interlude at Pokertime I instead decided just to get a rakeback deal and after careful deliberation joined Celebpoker. I had trawled through various poker websites and this site was considered to be one of the most fishiest, with a lot of traffic. However I had to earn at least 100 euros a month in rake to get any back. I thought that this would be easy to achieve but playing NL10 I was barely racking up $100 worth of rake a month, let alone 100 euros (for those who don't know $100 equals about 72 euros). But on the other hand I managed to get my bankroll back up to over $300, so its definately a good site for making money at micro-stakes and, who knows, one day I may return to that site when I move up stakes. But I needed to get regular rakeback so after a few months or so I moved on to Poker4ever.

A friend of mine had recommended this site for a while and had built up a five figure stack from $200 in just a couple of months, although he was a prop player earning 85% rakeback. So in October of 2008 I joined poker4ever, with 35% rakeback, hoping to emulate my friend's achievements and build up a huge five figure some in no time at all. So far I've been playing on poker4ever for about three months and my stack has grown from $200 to a whopping $330, though it did hit a low $127 at one point in early November. The picture above shows my graph from the 16 November until Christmas Eve (its probably best to click on it to see it more clearly).

So there you have it in a nutshell, or three blogs, my story of how I got to where I am today. To be honest I haven't progressed much fiscally from last year but I think I am probably five times the poker player that I was this time last year. Hopefully as this blog progresses my bankroll will grow as per my Project (see first blog below) and this time next year I'll have three grand, thirty grand or even 300 grand!!

Bad Beats and Variance - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Huzzah!! Christmas is over at last (thank God) and now we can look forward to the New Year. Hopefully during 2009 my opponents will not hit every flush, inside straight and ridiculous two pair/three of a kind redraw draw that they have been getting against me these last couple of days. I'm not a naturally violent person but I swear to God the next time Broker tells me its just variance I'll stick a cheesegrater up his jacksy and twist!! In fact it amazes me that you see so few bust ups in live game poker (what some call 'Bricks and Mortar' poker). I suppose that is because 95% of internet poker players will never ever play live poker in a casino or card club. I've played in quite a few live tournaments and have never had any real tilt issues, but in internet poker I turn into Mr Angry at a moments notice. Today I had my Kings crushed by, wait for it, K5 off suit, and my opponents have hit nearly every flush and straight draw going. For instance I four-bet a half stack with AK suited making it $2.50. My opponent has $6 behind him and flat calls. The flop comes down A, K, 4. I think to myself, he probably hasn't got aces or kings here, as I have one of each and there's one of each on the board, and I don't consider for a minute that he has pocket 4s cos what dumbass retard would call nearly half their stack pre-flop with a pair of fours? So I stack him off and he shows, guess what, a shiny set of fours!! My toys went out the pram and I refused to play any more internet poker today. In another hand I get three quarters of an opponents stack in on the turn, and on the river a third heart rolls off and he ships it in. Its a dollar fifty to call for a $7 pot and I have top top (top pair and top kicker). I know he's got it but can you ever fold in that scenario? Anyway despite all this I have managed to break even these last two days after hitting over $300 on Christmas Eve. My target was to get my bankroll up to $500 before I go back to work on 5th January but that isn't looking very achievable at the moment. Especially if my opponents keep hitting every god damn draw!!!!

Having said this I have had my fair share of suck outs in the past, it seems that whenever I have pockets Kings and my opponent has pocket Aces I almost always hit a set. I once went all in with Queens on a J, 9, 7 board. My opponent called with 10 8 for the Jack high straight, but running 7s on the turn and river gave me the full house, winning me the pot. Plus I should be due a good run after all the bad beats that I've had so maybe that $500 isn't so far away after all (I might make it by March).

So how should one deal with tilt? I tend to moan and winge, then drink some strong alcoholic beverage. Sometimes I'll lie on my bed and put the pillow in my mouth and punch the mattress while screaming obscenities. But the best thing to do if you feel that you might be on tilt is to stop playing. It sounds like simple advice but I've learnt the hard way its the best way to save money. Another thing I used to do after a bad session was to not play for a week or so, and I've only recently stopped doing this. Its best to take some time out and when your feeling calm and relaxed start playing again, but waiting a week is a bit much. Maybe just an hour or so is best, maybe even a day if you're on the edge of sanity and feel like you're heading firmly towards psycho-ville. Tilt is really pent up emotional anger so if you have a punch bag (or in Broker's case a door, vase or laptop) then you can release that energy by punching and kicking the bejesus out of it. Also repeatedly banging your head against a brick wall can help too, but for legal reasons I can't advise that.

Well I feel a lot better now, these words have been like punching the mattress (with the pillow in my mouth). I could go and play some more poker now but I've got a box of wine to drink and there's some half decent films to watch on TV, and anyway, I wouldn't want to go on tilt again...