I'm a 24 year old student who has been playing poker for something like 2 years now. I've never managed to become a winning player and that I would like to change. I've been playing NLH and PLO SH cashgames but lost all my winning in the long run due to bad BRM and taking to many shots at the higher limits. I've never deposited any money (yes it is possible) kept having a bankroll due to luck, bonuses and rakebackdeals.
The blog:
With this blog I'm going to try to keep you guys updated on my experiences I face playing Don's and Mtt's. I hope to become a better player by receiving thoughts and inputs from other players with more experience and I will also try to post some hands in the future so they can be discussed.
I will not place any financial goals, I just want to become a better player, get more experience and learn from fellow Don- sng- and mtt players.
I will play the SH turbo 5$ Don's until I beat the limit and then move up to the 10$ Don's when I have 40BI's (which I think is enough for the Don's)
For mtt's I will only play 3,30$ freezouts and the 1$ re-buys. I play a 100BI brm for mtt's because I don't get Itm as often as I would like, so until this changes it's going to be a tight brm. Again I'm not doing this for the financial gain, I just want to become a better poker player, the cash will come automatically.
Rakeback = profit !!
Any thoughts or inputs on the matter are very welcome and I hope to keep you guys updated on a regular basis.
Joined: May '10
Location: Romania
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 279
I wish you good luck at the tables! We are all glad to help you if we can.Just post your hands and you'll see there are lots of ecperienced mobsters here on the forum, who can always give you an advice. Just remember: BANKROLL MANAGEMENT IS THE KEY!!!
Joined: Mar '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 6714
GL, id firs say if you not winning switch to FR, SH is quite swingy and needs more skill to play. Bankrollmanagment is a big must for Dons, Sngs and ant MTT. GL
Joined: Oct '09
Location: Spain
Age: 60 (M)
Posts: 2851
I definitely agree with B1gfoot that you should avoid SH at the start. The less varience, the better.
Since you say you´re prone to playing limits above your bankroll, it´s going to take A LOT of discipline to follow proper BRM. When you hit your minimum buy-ins, you´´ll have to move down a limit, and face more donks. That hurts! I know, because I do it. Like you, I´ve never put a dime in Poker, because I follow my BRM strickly.
But it often gets frustrating, far from easy to put up with sometimes... I just allow myself the odd tourney here and there above my limits for the fun, because the Poker is lots better there. Just remember why you´re doing it, and Good Luck!
Joined: Jul '10
Location: Brazil
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 23
I wish you good luck on this journey, and remember: bankroll management. the player who can manage your bankroll to perfection, get along ... you can take the example of the challenge chris ferguson, that starting from 0, reached $ 10,000 in online fulltilt. he teaches how, in fulltilt.com
Joined: Nov '09
Location: Philippines
Age: 51 (M)
Posts: 1011
Posted by weakminded: Hi,
Introduction:
I'm a 24 year old student who has been playing poker for something like 2 years now. I've never managed to become a winning player and that I would like to change. I've been playing NLH and PLO SH cashgames but lost all my winning in the long run due to bad BRM and taking to many shots at the higher limits. I've never deposited any money (yes it is possible) kept having a bankroll due to luck, bonuses and rakebackdeals.
The blog:
With this blog I'm going to try to keep you guys updated on my experiences I face playing Don's and Mtt's. I hope to become a better player by receiving thoughts and inputs from other players with more experience and I will also try to post some hands in the future so they can be discussed.
I will not place any financial goals, I just want to become a better player, get more experience and learn from fellow Don- sng- and mtt players.
I will play the SH turbo 5$ Don's until I beat the limit and then move up to the 10$ Don's when I have 40BI's (which I think is enough for the Don's)
For mtt's I will only play 3,30$ freezouts and the 1$ re-buys. I play a 100BI brm for mtt's because I don't get Itm as often as I would like, so until this changes it's going to be a tight brm. Again I'm not doing this for the financial gain, I just want to become a better poker player, the cash will come automatically.
Rakeback = profit !!
Any thoughts or inputs on the matter are very welcome and I hope to keep you guys updated on a regular basis.
Here we go !!
i dont think your a new player at all; with over 300 posts your not a newbie
euhm I never said I was a newbie, ... I don't know why you are all being mister bad ass about it, but I think you don't really know the purpose of a blog mister ... So please before being all and stuff please read and make sure u understand the post and after that if you have any questions ask them in a nice manner. Thank you
@ all the others:
Thanks !! I play the SH don's because that's the form I've been playing 2 years on at the cashgames and the one on which I have the most experience. I tried the FR don's but they go waaay to slow for me and to be honest, I just don't know how to play them correctly. I know on the SH dons the push/fold fase is crucial, so this is a stage I really have to study more.
Off course, after I've made some volume I'll be able to really tell what form is the best for me. But the SH don's seem to work for the moment.
I'm gonna play some more now and hope to give a serious post about my progress shortly ...
------------ Ok so here's the first update of my Don experiences. It's been a bumpy ride, but after playing 114, 5$ don's I've managed to win 65 of them giving me a profit of 80$ (rake not included). I can see that for a beginning player beating the rake without a good rakebackdeal is just impossible...
So lesson 1: get a good deal with the pokerroom before playing the don's. (many deals can be found on this site!!)
lesson 2: be prepared to go on tilt, because the push/fold fase with the SH turbo's comes around very fast, you will see a lot of players are pushing with small pocket pairs and any Ax. You will find that your premium hand will get beat on the river by a magical card many many MANY times, but hey, you can't change luck.
The next couple of days I'm probably going to work on my volume, playing more sessions and maybe play some more tables. Just to get more experience and to determine if this is finally going to be the game for me .
Today I'm not going to be able to play a lot since I have other things to do, but I hope I can give you guys an update one of these days .
Edited by weakminded (01 September 2010 @ 09:42 GMT)
Joined: May '10
Location: Romania
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 279
Nice to hear that you have made profit so far.Keep it going.You are right.You are right with the rakeback.I play sit&go on a site and I think if I had a rakeback deal I would have made much money from it...
Joined: Oct '09
Location: Spain
Age: 60 (M)
Posts: 2851
Nice that you made some profit!
Maybe I´m missing it, but I can´t see what site you´re actually playing on. Since you´re mentioning RakeDeals, I was curious. Could you let us know? Thanks.
Joined: Feb '09
Location: Brazil
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 273
Posted by weakminded: Hi,
Introduction:
I'm a 24 year old student who has been playing poker for something like 2 years now. I've never managed to become a winning player and that I would like to change. I've been playing NLH and PLO SH cashgames but lost all my winning in the long run due to bad BRM and taking to many shots at the higher limits. I've never deposited any money (yes it is possible) kept having a bankroll due to luck, bonuses and rakebackdeals.
The blog:
With this blog I'm going to try to keep you guys updated on my experiences I face playing Don's and Mtt's. I hope to become a better player by receiving thoughts and inputs from other players with more experience and I will also try to post some hands in the future so they can be discussed.
I will not place any financial goals, I just want to become a better player, get more experience and learn from fellow Don- sng- and mtt players.
I will play the SH turbo 5$ Don's until I beat the limit and then move up to the 10$ Don's when I have 40BI's (which I think is enough for the Don's)
For mtt's I will only play 3,30$ freezouts and the 1$ re-buys. I play a 100BI brm for mtt's because I don't get Itm as often as I would like, so until this changes it's going to be a tight brm. Again I'm not doing this for the financial gain, I just want to become a better poker player, the cash will come automatically.
Rakeback = profit !!
Any thoughts or inputs on the matter are very welcome and I hope to keep you guys updated on a regular basis.
Here we go !!
""I've never deposited any money (yes it is possible)"" hahuahua If you play nice, you never will need deposit...
@IslandJack: I play on vc poker at the Ipoker network and have a good deal with them regarding rakeback and stuff which I managed to get like a year ago.
maybe for the rest a little history (for those who are interested ) :
I started of playing at pokerstars (50$) with a no deposit bonus from another site but since I was a beginner I quickly lost almost everything except 5$. After that I got a no deposit bonus at Unibet of 20€ and lost everything except 0,14€. I went to the slots and managed to get 2 jackpots in a row making my 0,14€ into 45€ on just 2 spins ... .
I decided it was time to take the game more seriously so I started reading books and watching some vid's online. I managed to cash out 110€ from unibet and moved to fulltilt to clear the bonus and recieve the 27% rakeback. I lost half of my bankroll in the first week and moved from one pokersite to another (very frustrating time). After clearing some bonusses and recieving the rakeback and stuff I went to party poker (Big mistake!!). The rake was huge and I caught a string of very bad hands losing almost my entire bankroll (owyeah tilt played a big role to ). I realized I still had 5$ on pokerstars and by playing sng's I managed to get it back up to a healthy 75$.
I came into contact with a person who was playing semi professional and he offered me a good rakebackdeal at Ipoker so I didn't hesitate and went for it. I managed to build up a bankroll back to 200$ but I played for more then 5 months breaking even due to the rakeback which is extremely frustrating. I again started moving between pokersites clearing bonusses but didn't realize I was just playing under constant tilt. I started playing drunk, started experimenting with other forms of poker like PLO, RAZZ and Studd. I took shots at the higher limits and off course lost it all. We all go broke at least one time.
Again a gift from heaven I managed to get a no deposit bonus at 365poker of 35€ and started playing PLO with an extreme agressive brm. In a week time I was playing plo50 en plo100 and made 1300€ but I forgot to slow down and lost 3/4 of my bankroll in no time .
withdrew the money and went back to VC poker and started again playing plo cashgames but realized I just couldn't handle the swings and again switched back to NLH with succes but I really got tired playing the cashgames and lost most interest in it.
So now after a break of a month and after having talked to some fellow poker players I decided I was going to crush the Don's, sng's and the Mtt's !!
Tomorrow hopefully I'll be able to play a few sessions and keep you guys updated and hopefully I'll come across some weird hands to post !!
Joined: Dec '09
Location: France
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 163
dude, 65 out of 114 is bad I believe for DON's but well you are profiting... I managed to be succesful at DON tables at partypoker without rakeback deal, and they had huge rake... All I can tell you right now is, be patient, and play only pocket aces on DON's, haha xd
Joined: Nov '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 2194
Yeah i'd read your posts / blog so good luck. It sounds like you have had a typical sort of run in the game as most of us here... well at least me anyway. Make a little loose it quick sort of deal. I've been doing it for a little longer thou. Good luck and i hope you improve your game . But how are you going to gauge your sucsess if you are not interested in making money? Surly as you get better your bankroll will grow. I agree you are less restricted and under less pressure if you dont set a target but having a bankroll and keeping it it proff to me that you have made it, even if "it" is the ability to hold your own in a very challenging and cut throat environment "THE POKER WORLD".
------------ Also I dont think you can really get a lot out of DONs..... I could be wrong but I never seem to be able to play propperly in them I mean its all too tight at the begining and aggressive near the end, you never seem to be able to have a good game I mean theres never much chat (in the games ive played) Defo not as much as in a good MTT. How do you feel about this??? DONs are good for building bankroll.....
Edited by xxxbchxxx (02 September 2010 @ 02:29 GMT)
Well my goal at the end is to become a winning player and so make a good profit on the side, by not setting myself any targets, indeed I will feel much less under pressure.
It's true that most of the Don's are very tight in the beginning and aggressive at the end, but I think that's the same with any tournament play. At the shorthanded turbo's the push/fold fase just comes very quickly and the luck factor will play a bigger role, so more swingy. But it is perfectly possible to beat this fase and make it very profitable.
Not much chat doens't bother me, I never use chat whilst playing poker.
@pitiless:
I don't really know what makes a good number to be considered a good Don player, but they told me a winning of 55% to 60% is quite common. Off course I hope this will go up while getting more experience.
Joined: Oct '09
Location: Lithuania
Age: 43 (M)
Posts: 2805
hi its really good that u post here its really alll we wich u good luck at the poker tables and sometimes come here and post about your wins and looses here good luckj all
Ok, in the 2 years I've been playing I have NEVER seen a day like today ... on every table i was playing time after time the best hand got cracked by these unbelievable trashhands (not only my hands also from others) when I went in with 92 against AK I won with two pair but at the same time my aces were cracked by QQ on a flush ... but really every table I played at least 2 players were knocked out with a hand that was favourite to win on the turn with 75 - 25 ... really I have never seen this
I played like 36 don's today only managed to win 16 of them, really at the end I just knew when I pushed the AKs or AQs that it was going to lose ... and guess what I did time after time. I know it's just variance and the swings are huge with the SH don's, but today was a day to quickly forget.
Definitely going to stop playing for the day cause I feel I'm going to tilt if I get knocked out one more with AKs against 22 !! (from the 5 pushes with AK only 1 flopped a K and still got beaten by a runner runner straight )
Joined: May '10
Location: Romania
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 279
Sorry to hear this.It happens like you said it's variation...But the best thing to do now is to stop playing.Go back tomorrow with fresh powers and keep in mind that bad beats like this happen.I got my aces cracked 3 times today so it happens.
I will not place any financial goals, I just want to become a better player, get more experience and learn from fellow Don- sng- and mtt players.
!!
I never said I was a newbie, ... I don't know why you are all being mister bad ass about it, but I think you don't really know the purpose of a blog mister ... So please before being all 
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