Just Over A Year Of Poker

I just realized that I've been playing poker for actual money for just over a year now. When I first started I was playing on a site where you don't deposit any money, but if you made some ridiculous amount of chips they'd pay out. Like a million chips would be $10 in real money. The thing is people don't care when it's play money. They'll call down or go all in with garbage (really bad players also do this with real money). You'll never learn anything aside from the absolute basics (things like a flush beats a straight, etc).

It didn't take long for me to wise up and deposit on Pokerstars to play for real money. So I took some money that I had won from a contest and used that to make a deposit. I've never spent a dime of my own money on poker, haven't gone broke and had to deposit again, and I've been making money ever since. I credit this to learning bankroll management early. (Also useful was learning not to worry about dollar value and to treat the money as chips: thinking of it as big blinds and buy-ins.)

Within a few weeks of signing up I got Holdem Manager. So my first weeks of play aren't tracked and graphed. Here's my lifetime graph from the point where I started using HEM...

I realize that just over 100k hands isn't that much. When I started I was playing full-ring, so that's less hands per hour. I also single-tabled for a really really long time. I'm not sure if I would've made more money quicker by adding more tables in earlier than I did. I think playing one table forced me to concentrate more on learning the game and making better plays. A lot of people jump to multiple tables a lot sooner than I did.

In fact, I still don't play that many tables. At the moment I usually only play three tables at a time, so I'm definitely not one of those guys playing 16+ tables. I've played four at time on occasion, and I think that might be where I max out. If I'm losing or plan on playing a short session, I drop down to two.

I've also still got a lot to learn. I spend about as much, and sometimes more, time studying as I do playing. Most of it on 2+2. I still try to watch the occasional video. I haven't read too many books aside from the 2-3 I read when starting out. I did just finish a pretty decent eBook that had a few useful tips, but a lot of it was just refreshing material I had learned elsewhere.

The only way to get better is by playing and studying like crazy. Looking back, I'm amazed that I didn't go busto early on. I think back on some of the terrible plays I made when I didn't know better. Or I think about when I didn't know or understand certain concepts and realize how bad I was. I think it's important to constantly be able to improve. I fully expect to look back on my play now in a few months and shake my head at how I was doing this or that wrong.

It's kind of funny that I started to play at all. All my life I had no interest in gambling aside from occasionally playing slot machines when dragged to a casino. A year and a half ago I'd watch CASINO ROYALE and I didn't even know what the hell was going on in the poker scenes.

Here's hoping I learn more (and make more) in the year to come.