… follow-up to "I am a losing poker player!" post!

Image via Wikipedia

As I mentioned in my last post, I have finally decided that I am not having a run of bad luck which is causing me to lose at playing poker.

It is how I play that causes me to lose.

It is when I fail to extract extra value for my good hands.

It is when I fail to fold hands even when the evidence is in that the hand is in trouble.

It is when I go on tilt and bluff away my stack.

There are a lot of leaks in my game that need to be plugged.

But I am working on it.

My last twenty four sessions on Absolute Poker playing No Limit .10/.25 has seen me winning enough to be in the black so far for April. In fact, if I just look at the last 24 sessions alone, I have won over $63 or almost $2.75 per session. I realize that is not a lot but it does mean that I am moving in the right direction.

Now, looking at my spreadsheets, I see that I have had some good runs in the past and then went down hill from there, so I will not get too over confident that I am now the improved player of the year.

What this does mean is that my bankroll on Absolute is growing to the point where I will be able to move up to the next level, .25/.50 and see if my success continues.

What am I doing different?  I play with the idea of winning small pots, I watch my position versus the big and small blind, I keep track of the other player’s tendencies, I try to mix up my play so that I am not easy to read. I try to pick off the bluffs that in the past caused to fold winning hands.

I still need to learn to back off when I am re-raised and I don’t have the best hand.

How do you adjust from being a losing player to a break-even  player and finally to a winning player?

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The evidence is in – I am a losing poker player!

Image by lucy and her dent via Flickr

This does not come as any surprise to me as I am making re-deposits to my online sites each year when I finally run my balance with a site down to $10.00 or less.

There is only one site in the last three years that I actually have more than what I started with and I don’t play there very often.

Why am I saying this?

I have always had aspirations that I would one day be a great poker player and would make a living at it.

Based on my earnings so far, I could be losing that weight I have been meaning to take off, because I would not be earning enough to buy food with.

Where do I go from here?

I love the game, I love the action, I love the books, videos and poker shows.

So I will probably end up being a recreational poker player. I will probably play a few tournaments a year and I will probably continue to blog about my successes and my failures. Now this could change if I have three or more winning years in a row. But I am not holding my breath until I do. I am blue enough already.

I will still read new books about poker and will share my thoughts about them.

In fact, I have just received two books courtesy of Robbie Vorhaus, written by his cousin John Vorhaus.

One is a book of poker fiction, titled “Under the Gun” and the other is a poker book titled “Killer Poker Online 2 – Advanced Strategies for Crushing the Internet Game”.  Both of these books look like a great read and I can’t wait to get started reading them.

Do you know what type of a poker player you are? Are you a recreational player? An amateur? Semi Pro? Pro?

Does knowing what type of player help your expectations when you play?