Lost £15 On Poker
- Thread starter Sinque
- Start date
Is that the key? The key to not losing? I never realised, thank you so much! I never realised I needed to 'get better'
Associate
- Joined
- 2 Sep 2007
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- 874
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- Scotland
£15? Fifteen whole pounds? This calls for a collection!
Some would say play on Free tables but as that is Ok to a point it doesn't teach you to read people or to be right with your stack.
Watch the late night poker tournaments & don't look at the cards look at the players & the bets they play.
Watch the late night poker tournaments & don't look at the cards look at the players & the bets they play.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com - find the beginner forum
Caporegime
- Joined
- 28 Jun 2007
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- Tamworth, UK
Play freeroll on a Sunday night. I guarantee you will learn, I have 
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 3,164
read David Sklanskys Therory of Poker
But I don't understand why! I waited for the perfect deals, folded when my chances were low and at the right times but eventually the blinds would eventually chip away at my total
Anyone got advice? Cheers
I can tell you why you lost your money. Your bankroll wasn't big enough to absorb the variance found in the game of Poker.
If £15 was your lot, then you should have been playing 10% to 20% of that as the maximum buy in at a a table. So you should be playing no more than a £3 maximum buy-in cash table, or a £3 sit and go if you're going to do it properly.
Cash Poker (or any serious Poker) is a long term thing. You'll have big wins, and big losses, but the aim is to make money at a steady rate over hundreds of thousands of hands. Sitting at a cash table with the only £15 you can afford to lose is called gambling.
You'll never really get any better playing for play money. People just don't play the same when it isn't real - there's nothing to stop you just going all-in on every hand. You'll improve a lot more quickly if you play for micro stakes - unless you're really terrible it's hard to lose more than a few quid an hour, and you'll learn a lot more about the game.
As Nullvoid said, the problem with playing very tight like that is that it's dead obvious when you've actually got a good hand, and everyone just folds.
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 May 2005
- Posts
- 12,631
What nullvoid said is very good advice.
I have read the Dan Harrington books and can recommend them. If you are playing sit and gos, pick up volume 1 of his tournament books, see how you get on with it and if you like his style move on to volume 2. Harrington recommends Sklansky but I cannot say I have tried it myself.
Sounds like you are being pegged as a rock by the other players and as has been said every call/raise is being respected by your opponents. Try to be more positionally aware (get more aggressive the closer you are to the button) and definitely loosen up as the blinds increase. To give you an example, you might have folded say ace ten offsuit in early position in your 'super tight' mode. When your stack is getting smaller relative to the blinds you should be looking to play that kind of holding. If you find yourself with only enough chips for another few rounds (i.e. getting pecked to death by the blinds) you need to start pushing all in with anything semi-decent (unless perhaps someone has raised the pot before you).
Try and get a feel of your opponents too. Do you think you're too focussed only on what you have and how the flop is improving your own hand?
Don't be disheartened though, I think I know a fair bit about poker and I wouldn't say I'm a profitable player just yet. It sounds like you have the patience to play a decent game, where I kinda know what I'm doing but get impatient and play pots I know I should get out of.
Finally, I would not recommend freeroll games or non-money games. If you eventually want to go on and play in tournaments for real money, you should get your practice in money games. The dynamic is different. If people have nothing substantial invested in the game, their behaviour will be totally different to someone who has paid an entry fee.
I have read the Dan Harrington books and can recommend them. If you are playing sit and gos, pick up volume 1 of his tournament books, see how you get on with it and if you like his style move on to volume 2. Harrington recommends Sklansky but I cannot say I have tried it myself.
Sounds like you are being pegged as a rock by the other players and as has been said every call/raise is being respected by your opponents. Try to be more positionally aware (get more aggressive the closer you are to the button) and definitely loosen up as the blinds increase. To give you an example, you might have folded say ace ten offsuit in early position in your 'super tight' mode. When your stack is getting smaller relative to the blinds you should be looking to play that kind of holding. If you find yourself with only enough chips for another few rounds (i.e. getting pecked to death by the blinds) you need to start pushing all in with anything semi-decent (unless perhaps someone has raised the pot before you).
Try and get a feel of your opponents too. Do you think you're too focussed only on what you have and how the flop is improving your own hand?
Don't be disheartened though, I think I know a fair bit about poker and I wouldn't say I'm a profitable player just yet. It sounds like you have the patience to play a decent game, where I kinda know what I'm doing but get impatient and play pots I know I should get out of.
Finally, I would not recommend freeroll games or non-money games. If you eventually want to go on and play in tournaments for real money, you should get your practice in money games. The dynamic is different. If people have nothing substantial invested in the game, their behaviour will be totally different to someone who has paid an entry fee.