Yoyo poker dot com

I have always loved reading other peoples poker blogs and last night I came across this site. I am a member of 3 other poker forums, but this one caught the eye as it had a section in it called Diaries and blogs and I've always wanted to record my poker in words some how. So here goes.

So I’ve been playing poker now since the start of 2007. I started playing because a friend of mine had just started. I first played single table SNG’s at the $10 level on a small site called poker.co.uk. I quickly lost my first $50. I had no clue about bankroll or what sites to play on. I sort of just googled poker and ended up playing. I eventually found poker stars and signed up to their site. Over a 6 month period I was one of the fishes I played about 500 games and lost about $500. I just enjoyed playing it as a hobby. At the time I didn’t actually think it was possible to win at poker.

Then a break through moment. I was playing a hand and got called a fish. I told the gentlemen in question what I thought of him and he ended up telling me that I was a fishy losing player and that I had lost the said $500. I asked him how he knew this and he directed me to sharkscope. Now I had a disposable income at the time and didn’t feel that bad about losing the money, but I then searched on other players at the tables and found that some of them were winning lots of money.

I then discovered Holdem Indicator and read the Harrington on holdem series. I started playing the 180 man SNG’s and very soon I had regained my losses and made some more money. I now thought that I had cracked this game and was very excited about all the money I was about to make.

Variance and hubris played their part and after losing all the money I had just made I re-evaluated my newfound wealth. I discovered Tournament indicator and then found my first poker forum at the beginning of 2008. After posting some hands and getting some advice I started to win again. I still had one major flaw in my game. Bankroll management. I kept on making money moving up the stakes and losing it again.

Along side the sng’s I played MTT’s when I could. I opened up a fulltilt account (without rakeback). I won $600 on a $26 MTT reaching my first final table. I got knocked out in 8th by the chip leader calling a shove with 22. Thems the breaks.

I now started to play some cash. I started at the 100NL level with a $250 bankroll. I made $400 very quickly and then lost it all again.

I also started playing live poker on the odd occasion without any success. In about March 2008 I won a £50 comp at Equal chance taking home £1200. How I loved the game at this point.

I had some more live wins, but I never tracked my results. I never knew If I was winning or not. I also played some live cash games. At this point I didn’t understand the distinction between the 2 types of game.

In 2009 I went to Las Vegas for the first time. Kate, my wife was pregnant and we wanted one last blow out holiday. I told her that I was only going to play one tournament out there. We searched through some of the other casinos and found a few crap shot 15 min blind 5000 chip tournaments, but there were no dealers at the table. I didn’t really want to pay much more for a buy in, but these tournaments seemed to be more of a lottery than a poker tournament.

I settled on the daily Venetian tournament. It was the hotel we were staying in. We started with 10k in chips, the blinds lasted 40minutes, it was dealer dealt, the table shuffled the cards, but the buy in was $150. There were normally about 200 runners. I thought what the hell I am only in Vegas once.

10 hours later I’m sitting on the final table with 2 other players top prize is $8000 and the prize pool left is just over $15000. We made a deal for $5121 each and I’m in love with poker again.

After I got home I decided to put a plan into action to build my BR up again properly this time. I had $250 in my account and decide to play the $4 180 man SNG’s on stars.

For some bizarre reason I still can’t quite figure out I entered a $10 rebuy MTT $50000 guaranteed. It was totally outside my bankroll. I bought in for $50 and ended up coming 3rd for about $3500. I also won another live tournament at Equal chance. In one month I had won about $10000. In another bizarre move just after the online win I sat down at the $25/50 nl table with $1000. I didn’t think I would play many hands, but the gambler in me had kicked in. I caught AK in the first hand and the sb shoved. I called and the flop came down with 2 kings. So in one hand I had just made $1000. Have a look at my ptr hands and down the bottom you can see my one hand at $25/$50. :oops: :oops: :oops:

Now this should have been the wake up call I needed. I had just got extremely lucky on 2 separate occasions playing well outside of normal bankroll guidelines. I had over $5000 in my stars account at this point. I withdrew $3000 then I got an email from pokerstars telling me that if I could hit 10000 VPP’s in the month of june they would give me an extra 80000VPP’s to get me on track towards supernova VIP status. I then made the said 10000vpp’s playing 100nl. Now at this time I was fully rolled for 100nl, but was far outside the skill level required to win. I managed to throw about $2500 down the pan in the next few months.

By now I was totally disillusioned with poker. I had had a month from hell were I was running $1200 below expected value. I was on tilt half the time I played and instead of cutting my losses I carried on spewing money. On top of that I had hit the final 2 tables on large MTT’s 3 times and received bad beats on all 3 ending up finishing in the final table bubble every time. On 2 occasions I had hit the final 2 tables in the chip lead. I reviewed the hands and found I’d just been very unlucky. On the last tournament I had AA beaten all in pre flop twice. Once with 55 and the second time with Q7s. First prize on both tournaments was over $10K.

I then practically gave up playing for a few months at the beginning of this year. Every now and then I would play live. I then sent an email off to pokerstars asking for a full transaction history on deposits and cash outs.

I now knew that over the course of my pokerstars life I had made a profit of $450 plus the money still in my account. Now being philosophical about it I had had a great time learning and playing poker over the last 3 years and it hadn’t cost me anything. Despite bad bankroll management I had got very lucky, but I have had to reload on my account a grand total of 32 times. Obviously some of that was from cashing out the BR and then buying in again when it was depleted.

I truly think that if I had planned my journey from the start, taken more care in recording my results and followed sensible bankroll guidelines I would be far further on than I am today.

Now as you can see my journey has taken me through highs and lows and I have come out just above breakeven. I would estimate that my live winnings are probably in the $2000 region, but having no record I can not say for sure.

In essence poker has been a way of me saving money. I would win and withdraw money to pay for a car, new laptop, computer monitor and nice holiday to Las Vegas, but I have paid for it by reloading.

Now to the future. I see that my skill level is such that I know I can make money from poker. It will probably never be enough to earn a living off, but I should be able to make $300 a month playing about 10 hours a week. I have got some coaching from a very knowledgeable chap and I’m rigorously sticking to a BR management plan. I have invested in a training site and dedicated 2 hours a weeks to watching the videos. I have learnt how to cope with variance and now have tools to keep tilt to a bare minimum.

In the last 2 months I have been playing $3 heads up sng's on stars and have an roi of 17.8% over 200 games. I am rolled for $15 at the moment but I have only moved up to $7 to make sure I can beat that level before I move up. I really enjoy heads up poker and would like to move into cash when I am rolled for it. I'm thinking 30 buyins is the minimum before I give it a go.

My aim in this blog is to record certain situations that I have trouble with in games, ask advice and to post progress to help me stick to my BR plan. Wish me good variance.