hello to all. i guess it's about time that i join and actually contribute to these forums. i have been reading the articles on the main site, and several threads a day from this no limit forum, and i believe very strongly that it has impacted my game for the better (or for the bettor if you like cheesy poker jokes).

i'll start with a bit of background so you can know a bit more about me. i'm 24 years old, and a full-time graduate student in computer science. prior to a few months ago most of the gambling i did was small stakes home tournament hold'em games ($10 buy-ins or so) and blackjack (interesting side note: for a while i was part of a "team" playing a counting/+EV blackjack strategy and winning pretty serious money at charity casinos, although we never tried it out a a real b&m)

i started online at PokerStars about 2.5 months ago on a $150 roll that was profit from a very fishy live $1/$2 NL hold'em game i had played in. playing over my head (more acurately, over my roll) at $0.05/$0.10, i managed to win $100ish in about two weeks. then i had a tilt night. a bad tilt night. a disasterous tilt night. in one night i busted myself from $250 down to $100 partially from stupidly upping the stakes to $0.10/$0.25 chasing losses. the next morning i woke up and i resolved that i wasn't going to let myself play that stupidly any more.

i took my $100 roll, and though disappointed with myself and my station, sat down at a $0.01/$0.02, $5 max NL six-max table and started concentrating on playing solid strategy, playing good odds, and laying bad odds. within about two weeks i had worked myself up to $350 and was ready to start playing $0.02/$0.05 $10 max NL six-max. in a little less than a week i've managed to bring my active bankroll up by another $100 to $450ish.

i tend to play a sLAG style game, and Excession's auto-rate rules do seem to confirm this. i'm becoming more and more familiar with poker tracker, and spend almost more time using it to review played hands, and evaluate opponents than i do actually playing poker.

i've also evaluated ROR for my current stats, and while it seems to be high, it is likely do to an inflated standard deviation. not wanting to be all that risky, and not too disappointed with a bankroll that grows slowly, i decided on a third tier approach. the ROR calculation suggested 11 buy-ins for 13%, so i went with 35 buy-ins untill i could get more hands in and see if my standard deviation settles down. besides, i'm making ~$25 a day on average at this point.

my standard deviation is a whopping 125+! all-in-all i think this can be explained by a small sample size (~6800 hands) and the fact that at the tables i've been playing at the max buy-in is not the standard 100BB. so when i double through someone, i'm winning as many as 200BB. now i only double through like that maybe 3 or 4 times in a session of 500 hands, but that combined with all the other pots i'm picking up has left me with a win rate of 29.09 PTBB/100.

now i know it's naive to assume that such a monsterous win rate can continue as i move up, mainly because the skill of the competiton seems to be proportional to the blind level. yet on the other hand, i wonder if it's more profitable to get a higher quantity of (individually) less profitable scores in oposition to a lesser quantity of more profitable scores. i'm wondering if by simply playing at this current level below my skill and capitalizing on the mistakes of weaker players, and by my self-requirement of a very deep bankroll, i'm helping myself out, or not learning more valuable skills since i'm playing against players who aren't using skills like deception.

i'm generally exceptional with math, and have become quickly familiar with the concepts of outs, pot odds, and implied odds. so now i ask for help.

looking into poker tracker, it puts my blind defense seriously into question. 80%+ for folding either blind to a steal attempt. although i look at my hands filtered to me being in the blind, and me "folding to a steal attempt" and i look at the replays, and most of the hands i'm folding are trash hands. a few of them are places where i had poor AXs and get raised by the button and fold. some of these hands could have been winners, but i'd have to call down 4BB+ on someone that had position on me where the odds to make that call are poor.

am i doing something wrong? it seems that the killer hands i get in a session more than make up to these losses through blinds. my agressive nature tends to have me picking up a lot of unclaimed pots as well, so i wonder if since my style is only slightly loose if these losses to blind steal attempts are just a cost of doing business in the sLAG style.

another question... i own a few poker books. i'm one of those read/study twice, play once kinda guys. i like to dominate with good strategy, so i read a lot. the following i own (bolds have been read, italics is in progress.)

1). Super/System - Brunson et. al.
2). Super/System II - Brunson et. al.
3). Theory of Poker - Sklansky
4). Killer Poker Online - Vorhaus
5). Small Stakes Hold'em Winning with Expert Play - Miller, Sklansky, Malmuth
6). Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players - Sklansky, Malmuth
7). Harrington on Hold'em Vol. 1 - Harrington, Robertie
8). Ace on the River - Greenstein

i've read #1 and #3 three times through each. i'm guessing that it's better to read #5 before #6. most of these i picked up on the suggestion of a friend. he plays medium stakes on PokerStars, and a lot of heads-up games. i must say i really liked #3, Sklansky's use of math is right up my alley, and his explanations of things sink into me pretty easily. basically i'm looking for suggestions on what order to read the books left unread (non-bolds).

regardless, love the site, love the forums. glad to finally be a part. oh, if you're interested, i recently started a blog to add a bit more accountability to my game. it also has up-to-the-session stats, as well as a longer post on my background. it's available at http://fivehighstraight.blogspot.com

Hello thewheel

Thanks for your post:

1) Why hold'em?
2) Why no limit?
3) Why shorthanded?

there are lots of material on moving up limits. I believe you're right about poor opposition not teaching you anything about the game, but you'll at least get the nuts and bolts of correct play versus a range of weird villains down cold, which is extremely valuable. But you should move up when ready, because if you're really punishing a level then you won't be challenged and won't grow as you yourself suspected.

You might want to consider planning your NLHE career along simple steps. For instance, look at Kuso's PLO8 $1000 challenge in the Omaha forum for inspiration.

The crux of these kinds of schemes are always something like:

1) Make 20 buy-ins at level 1 in at least 10,000 hands
2) Move up and do the same at the new level. Move down and repeat former step if you lose eight buy-ins.

This should ensure you're never going broke, that you're always moving up with confidence and that there's room for variance to play with you.

You can of course make room for both full ring and shorthanded, make the rules 10/4 buy-ins or 50/20 or whatever.

In any case, report back with your progress.

Cheers,

Smurf

PS: I suspect that Sklansky's and Miller's new book will be your new bible!

get 'no limit holdem - theory and practice by Sklansky/Miller - it's just out and an instant classic


and you might try whoring some BJ bonuses at casinos to build your roll fast


oh and welcome