poker crossroads

[Talking Poker]

Brian - I hope you +Rep everyone who has posted in this thread, because these are some very well thought out responses. I'm going to try to make mine a lot more brief (I got tired from reading all of that!)...

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First a quick side note though - jimmym - Welcome back. Haven't seen you around in a while. Search for the "Request Line" thread in Off Topic. I think you'll like it and hope you contribute (in a new thread, if you like). What ever happened with that potential record deal thing?
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OK, back to you SWA. I think by now, I know enough about you to form a pretty reasonable opinion. And I think you know this is true, despite how many times you've lashed out at me for trying to help you in the past. What, a dozen, maybe? More? I also think this potentially makes me an idiot for even reading this post, let alone replying to it.... but I'm funny like that. Somewhere, deep down, I still want to help you, even though you deserve it less than anyone on this forum (yes, I said ANYONE, eejit).

So, here's the deal: You've got the fundamentals of poker down. You're not a master, but you now enough to be a winning player at the low limits already. And I don't mean .01/.02 - I mean more like $.50/$1. You don't get the higher level stuff yet, but I think you could someday. I've SEEN you learn over the past couple of years, so there's no reason to think you couldn't continue to learn more advanced though processes. Your biggest problem always has been and always will be your complete lack of discipline. You can set all the goals and rules you want, but deep down you know that you won't be able to stick to them. And that's why you'll (probably) always be a losing poker player.

So, given everything I know, my advice to you is to quit. Again. But this time, don't fail at quitting like you have every other time - actually quit.

Now.... knowing full well you're not going to quit, here is my secondary advice to you to help you make your deposits last a little bit longer, and maybe, just MAYBE turn yourself into a winning player:

1. Figure out HOW you are going to work on your discipline BEFORE you even make another deposit. Start with that Zen and Poker book. It can't hurt.

2. As for what stakes to play, stay within your bankroll. If you start with $100, that's different than if you start with $500. STICK TO THE STANDARD BANKROLL GUIDELINES (300 BBs for limit / 20x max buy ins for NL). As your bankroll permits and ONLY as your bankroll permits, move up. If you start off badly, move down and don't move back up until you are bankrolled to do so. If you follow this advice, you shouldn't go broke. You might end up playing .01/.02 until you regroup, but in theory, you should never go broke because you'll never have all of your money on the table.

3. Don't necessarily make yourself play for set time limits. I know you think this will help you with your discipline, but it won't. Here's Thieu thing though..... you're probably going about this all wrong right now. If you are losing, THOSE are the sessions you want to cut short - not play longer to try to "get it all back." Maybe you are playing badly, maybe your opponents are better than you think, or maybe you are just getting unlucky - but for someone with the lack of discipline you have, you MUST quit before you lose control and end up losing everything. This is KEY. On sessions where things are going great, if you want to quit after X amount of time, that's fine, but in theory, these are the optimal conditions you should be playing in, so you should keep playing until things change (you get tired or distracted or the table changes, etc, etc).

4. After every session, use Poker Tracker to review your biggest winning and losing hands. Determine which you think you should have played differently. Did you win because you played well, or did you play badly and get lucky? Did you lose because you played badly, or because you were unlucky? If "badly" is the answer to either of those questions and you don't know exactly how you SHOULD have played it, post the HH here.

5. Don't fool yourself about your abilities and be open to criticism. If you post hands where you flopped quads and ask us how you should have played it, that's just wasting everyone's time. It will be far more beneficial for you to post hands that you played badly (won or lost, but especially lost) than hands you played well to "show off." People here are willing to help, but you need to be willing to listen to what they have to say and to admit you're not as good as you think you are (which you seem to finally be doing, just two years later!).

Dammit, I said this wouldn't get long. OK, I'm ending it now.

GL.