Cost of Learning Poker
How much do you think you have invested in learning your game?
How much did you lose before you got onto a winning track?
Include things like coaching, books, etc.
How much did you lose before you got onto a winning track?
Include things like coaching, books, etc.
Comments
Then I found this forum, Skalansky, Lee Jones and Zithals home games. All things that improved my game and I long ago recovered
my losses.
Probably have ~ $200.00 in books...and yes, the first one I bought was Hellmuth's...1 donk buy out of 6.
However, occassionally, I have been given very costly lessons!!
Investments
6 poker books and pokertracker! (~$200)
Pokertracker is next for me, since I'm STILL learning poker. I know I have a long way to go to "master" it.
JohnnieH
Cleared $3600+ just from bonus whoring. Check out bonuswhores.com
I started about a year and a half ago, maybe close to two years now with $100 of my own money. My first deposit was with Absolute Poker and I must say for that first year I loved that site and their twice a week reloads!!!!
I lost about $40 of my $100 in about 5 minutes before I called Wolffhound over from across the street....after he came over with an arm full of beer, Hellmuth's poker book and a zen like peace about him (no seriously he did..yes Wolffhound was at peace!!!!) I quickly learned to play a tight ABC game...which I still think is a very good approach! I quickly made back what I was down and went on to finish up about $1500 for the year. I paid for a trip to Vegas with Wolffhound last year and started the new year with a few hundred left in my poker account. I've spent about $100 on books (Harrington 1&2) and after Wolffhound begged me to move off his street he gave me a copy of Lee Jones for a 'get off my court' moving present......it is the low-limit bible just as Harrington's series is the NL tournament bible, IMHO. I worked my roll back up to the $1000 mark when I purchased a folding table for $200 and then took my first big hit, lost $300 (mind you this was tilting on Black Jack, not Hold'em)...it was a valuable lesson...I've since worked it back up to about $1000 again...paying for a few small things here and there and putting a deposit on a cottage rental for summer holidays. Without friends like Wolffhound to help me through the (thankfully) few tough times I'd have to say my poker career would likely have been very short lived! Now, however, my entire bankroll is won money!
I still have so much to learn but I must say it's nice to have a hobby that is this much fun and also generates enough extra cash to be able to get a bit more out of life, not to mention the fantastic poker community in the KW area and the new friends I have made!
What was the Hellmuth book for? Humour? T.P? levelling the table? mousepad? or beer coaster?
Once I figured it out, brought in maybe $25K in total - maybe a net of $10K through the years (or somewhere thereabouts - towards the end I got lazy with my bookkeeping).
I have not spent money on books and other items.
Once the online thing happened, I won about $3.5K in the first week and then proceeded to dump it back with little trouble. I would suppose that I am roughly where I started before this whole internet thing found me.
LOL it is a bad book I admit but if nothing else it gave me a list of starting hands to stop the bleeding and get me tightening up...and honestly at the time it did help! I believe now Wolffhound uses the Hellmuth book as a coaster...not only does he multi-table..but he multi-beers and doesn't want all those rings left on the table!
oddly i made money in home games from the beginning
I actually own the Hellmuth book as well..... (we were all n00bs once I guess). And if he does one thing it's stress play tight. I actually like it for reviewing the play of certain games. He actually explains the structure of the games very well. But now I use it for spilling my tea all over....... it's actually an oversized coaster.....
I thought that was the purpose of the CPF - biggest loser competition. Funny how Wolffie started that too. Poker imitates life - life imitates poker....
My biggest learning curve came when I was playing 50NL and attemting to play LAG. I was doing something called NUTBAR, its where you raise every single hand and try to out play your opponents every time. I lost 17 buy ins that day, I was down ~40-50 buy ins for the week but the experience I gained was well worth it.
Today I 8-table $600NL on stars and can easily rake in ~$1500 on a normal day.
I want to stop the bleeding...
I'm still a newb. I've been to the casino twice and doubled up on the 1/2/NL. +300 at the casino.
Online I think I'm -300.
I haven't looked at the bonus whoring thing. Is it possible to hit the bonuses playing low limits?
I just picked up the Small Stakes Hold'em book yesterday. I'll give that a read.
Deposited $100 in Stars. Played underrolled in the 25NL and probably ran that up to around 400-500 fairly quickly. Needless to say, I probably got a little cocky. Then probably dropped 200-300 back and started to learn about variance. The giant swings to my BR was annoying me, and I decided I was going to learn LHE to reduce the swings. Started .25-.50 I think but quickly jumped to .50-1. Lucked out and managed to money in the Stars Sunday $215 for a little over $1K (off a $3 rebuy sat). I decided now that since I had a suitable roll, I better learn how to manage it. Found this forum, picked up a few books, and picked up PokerTracker. Eventually started bonus whoring, multitabling, etc. to further the BR padding. I'm now to the point I'm fairly overrolled for the limits I'm playing, so am slowly kicking myself in the ass to move up the limit ladder.
An excellent book, just keep in mind it's geared to a loose LIMIT game.
Keep in mind 1-2NL online will NOT correspond to a 1-2NL game live. 1-2NL live probably plays more like .05.-.10NL online. The weakest/newest players will flock to the lowest available limits (which will be 1-2NL at the B&M).
If I had to pick one single thing that I'd say helped my game the most, I'd have to say results tracking. Once you have an objective view of your wins/losses, you can't BS yourself into thinking you're a winner when the results show you're not. Tracking your results will also start to show you how long the "long run" really is, and the thrills/agony of variance. Once you begin to understand you won't ALWAYS win and accept it, I think you start to show signs of growing as a player...
It is possible to bonus whore at low limits especially party I have found. Do the whole bonuswhoring 101 on the bonuswhores.com site.