AOL Bankroll $3300
Luck continues as I caught some beautiful cards last night. Playing pretty well for now. We'll see tonight!
Friday, March 7, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Good Night
AOL Bankroll $2600
Had an amazing couple of hours playing limit poker Saturday night. I hit more flushes, straights and sets than I ever have. Even flopped 4 of a kind once. First hand I flopped a full house. Pretty happy cause I upped my bankroll by about $1500 in two hours. Not bad for limit poker I don't think.
Gotta move on to the next level pretty soon. Probably PokerStars. net.
Stay tuned...
Had an amazing couple of hours playing limit poker Saturday night. I hit more flushes, straights and sets than I ever have. Even flopped 4 of a kind once. First hand I flopped a full house. Pretty happy cause I upped my bankroll by about $1500 in two hours. Not bad for limit poker I don't think.
Gotta move on to the next level pretty soon. Probably PokerStars. net.
Stay tuned...
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
AOL Limit Play
Started playing the AOL "Limit" circuit. Actually found out a week or so later that you have to have a certain bankroll (AOL play money) to play with the big boys. At least 2K. Well since I was starting with literally nothing (I would always lose my entire bankroll playing no-limit, run out of money and get $100 bankroll instantly!), I was stuck with the "low" stakes game which was fine with me since the raises were capped at $50.
What I quickly found out playing limit poker was that you better have some kind of "hand" if you were going to take the pot, especially playing with a full ring of 9 players. There seemed to be very little bluffing since someone always either had a high pair, a set (3 of a kind) or a straight. Even though the bets were 5/10, you could quickly lose money and it was hard to gain back. My first couple of nights playing I was catching some pretty good cards and it was not unheard of to win $500 within 30 min to an hour. I thought, dude, this is too easy, like taking candy from a baby. Just got to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. I think I could make money at this. If I just made $200/day that's 50k a year. I can live with that!
It was quite enjoyable the first week as I tried to build my bankroll up. I had it up to around $2600 last week so I thought, OK, let's play some high stakes! At first I observed a game and the bets were capped I think at around $200 or so. I thought this would be a good way to win some bigger pots but it also was a good way to lose the $2600 quickly. I jumped into my first high stakes table and couldn't catch a lick and ended up losing over $700 in about 30 minutes. enough to knock me out of high stakes qualifying. These high stakes guys had some huge bankrolls. Most had over several hundred thousand dollars and some had over a million. Jeez...$200 bets were nothing to them but significant for me so I have not been back to high stakes since then!
Lately, I have not had much luck at limit poker. I am down to around $1300-1400 right now and beginning to question if I can do this for a living. I have been longing for no-limit again. I prefer no-limit because you can make money by having no kind of hand. It feels great to pull off a big bluff. No feeling in the world like it but the money you could lose playing no-limit scares me. However, it is a rush to play and there is so much more strategy involved as far as betting and checking. I love watching the professionals pull it off on TV.
I guess "no risk, no reward" comes into play big time in no limit poker.
What I quickly found out playing limit poker was that you better have some kind of "hand" if you were going to take the pot, especially playing with a full ring of 9 players. There seemed to be very little bluffing since someone always either had a high pair, a set (3 of a kind) or a straight. Even though the bets were 5/10, you could quickly lose money and it was hard to gain back. My first couple of nights playing I was catching some pretty good cards and it was not unheard of to win $500 within 30 min to an hour. I thought, dude, this is too easy, like taking candy from a baby. Just got to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. I think I could make money at this. If I just made $200/day that's 50k a year. I can live with that!
It was quite enjoyable the first week as I tried to build my bankroll up. I had it up to around $2600 last week so I thought, OK, let's play some high stakes! At first I observed a game and the bets were capped I think at around $200 or so. I thought this would be a good way to win some bigger pots but it also was a good way to lose the $2600 quickly. I jumped into my first high stakes table and couldn't catch a lick and ended up losing over $700 in about 30 minutes. enough to knock me out of high stakes qualifying. These high stakes guys had some huge bankrolls. Most had over several hundred thousand dollars and some had over a million. Jeez...$200 bets were nothing to them but significant for me so I have not been back to high stakes since then!
Lately, I have not had much luck at limit poker. I am down to around $1300-1400 right now and beginning to question if I can do this for a living. I have been longing for no-limit again. I prefer no-limit because you can make money by having no kind of hand. It feels great to pull off a big bluff. No feeling in the world like it but the money you could lose playing no-limit scares me. However, it is a rush to play and there is so much more strategy involved as far as betting and checking. I love watching the professionals pull it off on TV.
I guess "no risk, no reward" comes into play big time in no limit poker.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Practice Tournament Hold'em
The first time I discovered and played AOL Hold'em no-limit Tournament poker, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. This game simulated what I had been watching on TV in the WSOP. I loved the fact that everyone started even, with the same number of chips.
The AOL no-limit Hold'em tournaments run 7 days a week and are held every three hours starting at 11 am through midnight. Generally anywhere from 2500-3500 players are entered in each tourney.
I started playing almost every 8 and 11pm tourneys M-F and tried to get in 2-3 tourneys a day on the weekends. At first my finishes usually were 1200 - 2000. Not very good. Played to many hands too early and got knocked out. About a couple weeks (early Jan 2008) into the tourneys I finished an amazing 92 out of 3552 players. Took over 2 hours and I was hitting cards like never before. Then got careless and lost it all quickly. I was so glad to make the Top 100 that I didn't care. It took me another 5 weeks (mid Feb) before I cracked the Top 100 again. This time I finished 50th! Before that finish I had slowed my tourney play down, only playing a couple of tournaments a week. I did that because that's about the time I thought, "Hey, dude you could maybe just do this for a living". But I thought that no-limit was too risky and that limit poker might be a better fit for my personality.
Next post we'll talk Limit poker on AOL.
The AOL no-limit Hold'em tournaments run 7 days a week and are held every three hours starting at 11 am through midnight. Generally anywhere from 2500-3500 players are entered in each tourney.
I started playing almost every 8 and 11pm tourneys M-F and tried to get in 2-3 tourneys a day on the weekends. At first my finishes usually were 1200 - 2000. Not very good. Played to many hands too early and got knocked out. About a couple weeks (early Jan 2008) into the tourneys I finished an amazing 92 out of 3552 players. Took over 2 hours and I was hitting cards like never before. Then got careless and lost it all quickly. I was so glad to make the Top 100 that I didn't care. It took me another 5 weeks (mid Feb) before I cracked the Top 100 again. This time I finished 50th! Before that finish I had slowed my tourney play down, only playing a couple of tournaments a week. I did that because that's about the time I thought, "Hey, dude you could maybe just do this for a living". But I thought that no-limit was too risky and that limit poker might be a better fit for my personality.
Next post we'll talk Limit poker on AOL.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Foray Into Online Poker
After about a week of playing the PC poker game I was itching but scared at the same time to try my hand at online poker. No gambling (yet) mind you, but real people. After awhile you could figure out the "robots" on the PC game and how they kind of were programmed to play. I wanted to play with real people. I hedged on this decision for a week while I looked around at all of the Poker sites (the ones advertised on the Poker shows). I was intimidated to sign up but finally signed up for an AOL account to play their online game. No gambling on AOL so I thought it would be pretty safe to do.
The first game I played in I was terrified. I thought that they would be able to spot the "rookie" a mile away. But after playing a few hands and realizing that no one really knows how green I am I started to settle in and have fun but boy was I nervous that first game! Do I raise, call, check, fold...dadgumit which button do I push! It sure seemed quicker and more unpredictable than PC poker. These were real live people and they could "chat" with you while playing. I was pleasantly surprised how polite most players were, usually only chatting when congratulating others on a good hand. I had to learn IM shorthand quickly as I am old school and spell every word out. Phrases like n1, gc, gh ty, vnh etc... were baffling me until I figured out the acronyms.
Once, a couple of weeks into AOL poker I was on a pretty good roll catching some great hole cards and flops and started pushing players around with my "big" stack. I noticed that this one player kept "shouting" (IM in all caps) for several hands in a row. Wasn't paying much attention as he couldn't be talking to me, right...or could he be? Acronyms like FAH, AH, FU finally starting meaning something to me. Oh my, this guy is actually cussing me out because I'm knocking people out of the tournament (more on tournaments next post).
I wanted to retaliate but I did not. I avoided playing the guy heads up because I admit, I was intimidated. Didn't want the verbal assault if I were to lose. Never had someone lobbing a verbal IM assault against me before. We did eventually play heads up and my heart was beating like a drum on every bet and every turn. He ended up have the better hand and won and proceeded to berate me (lots of gloating ala poker pro Mike the Mouth) with which I just issued a polite "vnh" message to him. Kill em with kindness I thought. He eventually got moved to another table so I never ran into him again.
The first game I played in I was terrified. I thought that they would be able to spot the "rookie" a mile away. But after playing a few hands and realizing that no one really knows how green I am I started to settle in and have fun but boy was I nervous that first game! Do I raise, call, check, fold...dadgumit which button do I push! It sure seemed quicker and more unpredictable than PC poker. These were real live people and they could "chat" with you while playing. I was pleasantly surprised how polite most players were, usually only chatting when congratulating others on a good hand. I had to learn IM shorthand quickly as I am old school and spell every word out. Phrases like n1, gc, gh ty, vnh etc... were baffling me until I figured out the acronyms.
Once, a couple of weeks into AOL poker I was on a pretty good roll catching some great hole cards and flops and started pushing players around with my "big" stack. I noticed that this one player kept "shouting" (IM in all caps) for several hands in a row. Wasn't paying much attention as he couldn't be talking to me, right...or could he be? Acronyms like FAH, AH, FU finally starting meaning something to me. Oh my, this guy is actually cussing me out because I'm knocking people out of the tournament (more on tournaments next post).
I wanted to retaliate but I did not. I avoided playing the guy heads up because I admit, I was intimidated. Didn't want the verbal assault if I were to lose. Never had someone lobbing a verbal IM assault against me before. We did eventually play heads up and my heart was beating like a drum on every bet and every turn. He ended up have the better hand and won and proceeded to berate me (lots of gloating ala poker pro Mike the Mouth) with which I just issued a polite "vnh" message to him. Kill em with kindness I thought. He eventually got moved to another table so I never ran into him again.
Friday, February 15, 2008
TV Poker
As I said in my last post, I began watching (and recording) any TV poker show I could find. I used to HATE poker on TV, especially on ESPN. Poker is not a sport so why the heck is it taking up good airtime on ESPN I would think to myself. True it's not a sport but boy is it entertaining to watch. I started watching the re-runs of the WSOP main event. Started with 2004 the year Fossil Man, Greg Raymor won. Watched every episode of that year's finals and picked up quite a bit from the announcers and the players themselves. I'm sure watching in person would be boring as all get out but the edited TV version was riveting to watch.
Set my DVR to record all Poker shows that I could find and I watch them several nights a week usually when I am playing online.
Set my DVR to record all Poker shows that I could find and I watch them several nights a week usually when I am playing online.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Game search
When we got back to our home, the little poker game that we played the other night peaked my interest slightly so I decided to try to and find a free download of a poker game to play on my laptop. I did find one so I started playing it. I discovered quickly that my brother had us playing incorrectly. We were bascially playing Texas Hold'em w/o the "turn and the river" cards! It's amazing what hands you can come up with when you have two additional community cards to use.!
This PC poker game was pretty fun. It had players with their own betting style (which I never figured out) by the way. Usually I would go broke but only once during that 2 day Christmas break did I actually win. I think it was a ring game not a tournament. Seemed easy enough, however I never was able to win the game the after that. I still had no clue as to what kind of hand I needed in relation to betting, calling or folding. Pretty much still called or raised every hand. Folding was not in my vocabulary at the time.
During the next two weeks, I played the PC poker game, started rabidly consuming TV poker shows (more on that in my next post) and occasionally playing with real cards with my wife and son, although the real poker was slow and hard to figure out sometimes who won the pot. The PC game had spoiled me a bit with it's instant results and fast play.
This PC poker game was pretty fun. It had players with their own betting style (which I never figured out) by the way. Usually I would go broke but only once during that 2 day Christmas break did I actually win. I think it was a ring game not a tournament. Seemed easy enough, however I never was able to win the game the after that. I still had no clue as to what kind of hand I needed in relation to betting, calling or folding. Pretty much still called or raised every hand. Folding was not in my vocabulary at the time.
During the next two weeks, I played the PC poker game, started rabidly consuming TV poker shows (more on that in my next post) and occasionally playing with real cards with my wife and son, although the real poker was slow and hard to figure out sometimes who won the pot. The PC game had spoiled me a bit with it's instant results and fast play.
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