Win Poker

As I’ve said some time ago I started to improve by poker skills by reading Holdem Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. 

That was something unbelievable. I’ve found a lot of concepts that I had been constantly violating. I can’t understand why I’m still not a bankrupt. Maybe others are even more morons than I used to be… 

Now I think I’m ready to conquer the peaks of holdem poker. 

For the moment I know that I should know the principles of the play at tight and loose tables, the concepts of bluff, semibluff and slowplaying before the beginning. I still can’t understand some things in the book but I decided to turn back later. 

I have liked the advice of Sklansky and Malmuth so much that I decided to implement it to my practice. 

I’ve written a slogan stating that a call on a flop is a money lost and started to observe my preflop fold rate. I believed that if I play rather tight and very aggressive I could earn much more in my microlimit table with very loose and rather passive way of play. I also started to use semibluff and bluff concepts in my games. 

As a result I’ve lost $5 (that is 25 Big Bets) in just half an hour… 

What’s going on??? I was playing better! 

And those loosers were seeking their luck on river calling my raises and getting two pairs… I can’t believe it! 

I’ve found a strange feature of poker. It conquers everybody who deals with it. I don’t know any exceptions for the moment. 

If you hear about poker and decide not deal with it than nothing threats you. But if any person decides to taste it he stays with poker. He thinks of poker. He discusses poker. He tries to know something about poker. He remembers all his brilliant winnings and the most incredible bad beats. 

So I really start thinking that poker is a virus not a game. It’s creeping all over the world leaving most of its victims without money but with an incredible desire to take a seat at poker table. 

By the way does anyone knows a cure for poker?.. 

Now I’m observing my wife playing poker on my account… She’s so funny type of pokerplayer. She’s afraid to raise if she doesn’t have absolutely nuts. She could even fold AQ if someone raises on preflop. And she doesn’t like Queens. She says ladies will always betray you if the case tightens up… 

And now she is shrieking as she wins with AA. 

By the way she’s earning money at the lowest limits as she plays rather tight. 

My 10 year old son also pays attention to our affairs. Hum… I don’t want him to play until he learns to have control over himself. I don’t want him to loose my money. So we don’t explain him the rules of holdem poker. 

But seems that he is also caught by that virus. 

After that day things come much better. I was playing poker every day. 

I started to win a little. At least I’ve returned all the money I’ve lost on my first poker day and even earned a little… Like $5… 

But afterwards I’ve lost again. My poker winnings were just a matter of casual luck not a skill. 

I was disappointed a little. So I decided to upgrade my skills by reading. 

First I made a kind of survey in order to decide what I should read first. And I didn’t come to a conclusion. 

Different people were defending the books of their choice though all of them were concordant that all that books are worth to read. 

For some time I was hesitating over a choice of 2 books that were available for me. They were Holdem Brain by King Yao and Holdem Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth. Holdem Brain was much less known but the other book was positioned as for advanced players’. I couldn’t decide which one will be more useful for me as I play the lowest limits poker. 

At last Sklansky and Malmuth have won. Maybe because they were two against one King Yao… 

This moment I consider the beginning of real poker world. 

There’s something strange. I can’t understand that. I’ve done everything right but I’ve lost my money. Not so much of course but still this is very unpleasant. 

After download I’ve installed the software and started it. Some formalities and I could start the game. First of all I joined Play money ring game in order to get acquainted to this software. It seems rather friendly though I can’t understand whether it saves my hands or not. Doesn’t matter, I’ll think later about it. By the way I feel myself great playing such games (*_*). I’ve earned 3,5 thousand playdollars. I’ve felt that I easily start my career. 

So I turned to real money ring games. Micro limit holdem poker… That is something special. I’ll make some reviews later on this topic. 

First I had to make an initial deposit. And as I’ve examined www.poker.com carefully I knew that I would be granted an initial depositors’ BONUS. The site presents me 15% of my deposit. 

Everything was OK except poker. 

In the very beginning poker also was very attractive. I’ve chosen the table with 0.1-0.2 limits (small blind was just 5c) and I’ve won the first and the second hands in my life. I’ve earned $5 in less than 2 minutes. That was great! 

In the next 3 hours I’ve lost that $5… And $10 more… And if not my wife I would lost all the money I’ve just deposited… 

I can’t say that cards put me in a spot. I’ve won reasonably fair amount of money. But I’ve lost much more. I gonna describe some of my hands in the next posts. 

I hate that lucky b… who said that poker is easy…

First I found a pokerroom. That wasn’t too difficult. I just entered www.poker.com in the address bar of my browser. I supposed that there must be a pokerroom at this URL and definitely I was right.
The site looks nice. And there are some interesting features of it. First there is an explanation of the terms of pro players. Now I can speak their language. And I can understand what a guy means by “holding rockets”. (^_^)
Second there is the order of winning hands. Very useful I think. I can’t remember all that stuff all the time. Now I could check my brains.
And at last there is Tina. It seems to be very pleasant pokerroom.
I went to download section and started to download the client. Looks like there’s about 10Mb. Not so much. Waiting…
Waiting… I want to start playing. I see myself winning a lot… World Series of Poker… Damn, why not?

I’m not an idiot for sure. I don’t want to loose my money. I asked my friend to explain me the rules of holdem and give me some hints to earn money. 

Honestly speaking I decided to choose holdem being impressed by his success here. Someone could call me greedy but I think it’s normal human desire to be the first. And I also want to earn $300 per night. I had to work almost a month to have such wages… 

A pack of beer solves every problem. He agreed to teach me a little though the main teacher is the experience. 

He explained me the main principles of holdem, the terms and the rules. He also advised me to read some literature dedicated to holdem and some forums like 2+2. 

In the beginning the Earth was without form and void… 

Me too. I started playing holdem knowing nothing of it. I played draw poker in my childhood. But that was just a game, without money for sure. And that wasn’t too interesting. 

The reason I started holdem is too simple. Most of us are driven by the same incentive. I want to win. I want to win money. I want to earn with higher hourly rate than my usual job provides me. And I could do that in my favorite chair in front of my laptop. 

It seems to be attractive way of earning money. 

It’s so easy. I’ll get money while playing games. I like that.