Grand Adventure

When I first started the online poker hobby, I started with play money (of course) then pumped a little bit of cash into an account to play for real money.  The reason for the second phase was that play money is just too artificial: you could have the best hand and never get the other knucklehead to back down.  Things were an All-In fest or “Poker Chicken” to see 1) who thought they were and actually were the luckiest, and 2) who would back down first.  Both are not why I started to enjoy poker.  To me, poker is like chess with some gambling/chance introduced but mostly a mental game internally.  There must be meaning and consequences for betting actions.  Only real money provides that.

I started out in cash tables, even with fake money, and did reasonably well.  Note: After I had to be reseeded several times with the free 1000 in fake chips from the site.  When I thought I was ready, I moved to penny tables with real money.  Here is where I was grossly mistaken.  I carried over habits and concepts of what constituted a good hand from the fake money play into real money play.  Stone cold bluffs are not the way to go.  Ace-4 not suited is really a bad hand.  And so on.  Because (unfortunately) I had initial success at the lowest blind level (.01 for SB, .02 for BB) I bumped to .02 SB and .05 BB tables.  Big mistake.  I began a downward spiral in my money in my account and only caught myself from the freefall about $40 later in loss after a few days of trying to save the Titanic. 

I explored the Sit and Go tables to try them out, and found the format to be just like I play on Xbox.  A familiar environment, and I started to do well there.  (I still do, breaking about even in winnings to losses…for my level of skills that’s acceptable I think).  But recently I tried back at cash tables to play just a little bit then sign off.  I was playing much better, and winning more than losing.  I realized a couple of things.

1) My reading of my purchased poker books helped considerably in understanding what was going on.  While my skills in counting outs, calculating pot odds and implied odds, and post-flop hand strength still lagged, I generally was starting to visualize what each player probably had in their hand by their betting and position on the table.  Things feel less foreign to me now, so I’m making better informed play decisions (thought not always the best or more profitable).

2) Tournament style, even including single table Sit-and-Go, has a certain rhythm to it.  It rewards more the aggressive player (and of course the more experienced player) because the clock is ticking.  Blinds go up, you have just your initial chips (usually about 1500 regardless of your buy in amount) + what you earn, and you want to get into the money.  Your losses are capped to whatever your buy in amount is, which can be a positive thing if you have a bad hair day.  The pace starts off relatively benign, but builds to a crescendo where people are going all in and playing chicken with folks to call.  Generally the top three are paid out.  The rest get nada.  Double-or-nothing tables mean you get into the top 5 of a 10 player table and you double your money but that’s it.

3) Cash tables are an “ebb and flow” pace.  Blinds are set, and don’t escalate.  A distinct difference is that chip values ARE money values.  Here the tight player can be a factor because they can wait for a premium hand (high pocket pairs, down to 10/10 pocket pairs, AK suited or not suited) then pounce.  Because you only lose .03 cents a round going around the table (with .01SB, .02 BB), you can see many hands with little loss until the big one hits you.  At the lower tables there are players who’s concept of what constitutes a strong hand is faulty, and you can take advantage of that. 

I now mix up S&Gs with cash table play.  If I am feeling in a groove I play at a cash table because, per minute of play, the payouts currently are better than S&Gs.  Even with the same quality of play on my part.  The trick to cash tables is to stay disciplined, which is very hard to do when you’ve folded 6-10 times in a row and now see Q-10 offsuit and want to jump into the fray.  Q-10 will win many hands at lower tables, but will also put you into really tough situations on the Turn and River cards to where you can lose a lot of money sticking with it. 

S&Gs are still nice because I know my losses won’t exceed the buy in amount, regardless of how long I’m there (or not) in the running.  And because of the XBox factor where it feels comfortable to me.