I wish I had the time for one.
Things are picking up a bit around here. I received a call from a client to do a rewrite on a proposal and have been dealing with a breakneck deadline on that. I sent the copy over to the client just an hour ago and have received a positive response, plus another rewrite assignment. While I’m waiting for copy, I thought I’d spend a little time here.
First off, another duck is on the ropes. A younger one this time. It went into a serious molt a couple weeks ago and has been despondent the last few days. No idea what is wrong with her, and we are hoping her unsteadiness and lethargy are the after-effects of the molt as she tries to regrow feathers.
I’d also like to address some of the comments from the previous post. In short, yes, it is a bankroll issue. Work is still sporadic as I ramp up my writing and say good-bye to the farming life. Therefore, we are still in a financial limbo.
Bankroll is key, there's no doubt about it.
I couldn't possibly have contemplated my year-long experiment without being willing to really and truly bankroll myself for it. *gulp*
I will not sit down at a table in a casino this year without at least 5 buy-ins in my pocket. It puts my head in a completely different place.
Only an hour and a half to a real live casino? Cripes, I'd commute there every other day if I had one that close!
Dear Sister Cardgrrl, if I had 5 buy-ins to bring along to the casino, I’d feel like I ruled the world. In that my casino roll totaled 7.5 buy-ins, I guess I was fucked from the start.
Good point from CG. My little trick was putting my casino winnings in a separate container and only ever using that money for trips to the casino. That way, mentally I was playing other peoples money instead of seeing my own hard ended going into the pot. :)
And to my dear friend, Gumpo: I tried that, or rather, a variation on that. Last year I split my winnings with my dear wife. See above. Needed the cash for other things. The result was that when I lost, there was no one to split it with and funds got depleted. This year I resolved to keep all of my winnings for my roll. The poker gods had other ideas.
there are plenty of real money but micro stakes online. You should be able to absolutely kill at those games with all the bad players.
I know it's ultimately not about the money with you, or you wouldn't have spent so much time becoming one of the top 3 PAX players. So it must be more about the intellectual challenge and the thrill of competition. Play .01/.02c if you have to, but play!
And to dear Matt: I have tried those ultra-micros and find them way too frustrating, However, I have not tried multi-tabling them. Where is Yakshi to give me pointers? As to whether the game is about money, an intellectual challenge or the competitive spirit, it is about all three. The first one has my attention at the moment. I have spent so much time on PA under the assumption that by improving my game there, I would have an easier time moving into real money. That has not been the case. In fact, a case might now be made that the longer I play at PA, the more harm it will do to my overall judgment in cash games.(I may address this issue at length later.)
Both Matt and Sandman suggest trying the micros again. I’ll give it a go.
Dear friends, thanks for reading and responding.
2 comments:
To tell the truth, the strategy I am using right now is fairly simple. I use Gump's table selection standards, with a little bit of leeway for nights where primo games aren't available, and I play extra tight. When I'm certain I've got the better of it, I make sure my bets give my opponents crap odds to call the typical chasing hands (4-flushes, OE straights, etc). I generally bet about double pot for both - and I almost always get a call. They draw out sometimes, but the value I'm generating should lead to an overall profit in those situations. I generally use my min-betting trick (see my Poker Drivel blog) when I hit any part of the flop. Often it's a small portion of the pot and I take it down. If they raise, I generally make a show of thinking about it, then bail as I'd predetermined to do. Sometimes I'll pull the same trick with a monster made hand (flopped nut flush, flopped set with rainbow board, etc) just to keep them honest... If someone's in the habit of raising my bets, this will give them a chance to step in it while I've got them clobbered.
It's very simple poker. I do very little trapping, except as stated above, and hardly any bluffing at all. It wouldn't work at all if the players at the levels weren't so laughably bad. There may be a more efficient strategy out there, but I'm showing a decent rate of gain so far even though I've already run into two full nights of heinously bad luck (in a week's play) and need to get better at laying certain hands down, like lower straights... But still a +20% net gain in a week on an average of an hour a night isn't too bad. (I was at +50% until the really bad runs, dove down to -30%, and grinded back up to +20%...)
I play 4 tables... Like you, I can't successfully play 1 table. I don't have the patience for it, especially at the micro stakes. The multitabling is what makes this whole strategy work for me. You end up playing tight by default... Because you don't have time to do anything else.
Also I avoid playing at a given table too long... Partly because people might catch on to my strategy and partly because other people out there are also trolling for these kinds of tables, so in time the fish get busted and you wind up playing other sharks.
Bast, man, rest assured I've gone through these exact same struggles. Everything you have said sounds familiar to me. You'll make it through this and I'm dead convinced both of us can make money playing poker... Despite the bumps and bruises along the way.
"However, I have not tried multi-tabling them."
B, multi-tabling is something i wish I'd started sooner. It all felt a bit foreign at first as it wasn't I'd practiced at PAO.
In hindsight, as Sandy's mentioned it helps my game. If you're paying pretty tight, it's not that common that you're caught in a tricky spot between 2 tables. Of course, it CAN happen but sometimes that helps as you can't over-read the situation and dwell too long. Generally speaking though, I'm flipping between tables folding most hands and I actually have time to still read hand histories and take notes.
FG
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