Me and Poker... What the future may bring!

I am a micro-stakes (25NL) player on party poker. This is mainly because of my bankroll. I would definitely like to move up but I am only at $430. I began serious online playing with a $250 deposit on Party Poker at the beginning of July. As you can see, I have been a member here a lot longer than July 2006, but before I won money off restricted freerolls at AP. Even when I won large amounts ($200) in one freeroll, I would just lose it because I had no info on BR management or multi-tabling or a TAG strategy at micro stakes.

Anyway, after my first month I have had a couple downswings and bad runs of cards (I play a lot everyday, but no sure how many hands - 4 tabling) but I ended up with a profitable first month. I am up about 7 buy-ins after my first month. So why am i saying all this you ask?...

Well, I know its only been a month, (and I am still a relative beginner) but I know that the way I play at 25NL i wont lose all my money cuz the ppl practically give me their money sometimes. Also, I know this because my profit came completely from my play. No rakeback, No PockerTrack or PO. No PokerAceHUD.

I feel I can definitely move up in stakes and be profitable at other stakes besides 25NL, but my first question is how can i get RB on party with an existing acct? I love the fish here and there are more than other sites so I am not considering moving. I want the fish + rb. I cant get PO or PT or PAHUD because i am too young for credit card or neteller. I use the usemybank option to deposit on PP and that is the only one I can use. That also means that I cant close/open my PP acct to set up rb.

Therefore, my question is... how can i become more profitable? I think these tools would make me much more of a winner than I am now and currently i am doing well with just my brain at the table. Even if i sustained the amount I am winning now with these tools, I would be happy incase I am just getting lucky.

Please give me advice.

TY

Originally Posted by Waterdick

how can i become more profitable?

Do you practice good seat selection?

I ask this because this is an immensely profitable technique that new players drastically underrate. If you don't practice seat selection, then start doing so now and your profit margin will go way up. As you move up in stakes, seat selection becomes even more important.

I can't really speak for NL because I am primarly a LHE player, but I'd imagine that this is as important if not more important in NL as it is in LHE.

If you don't practice seat selection, then start doing so now and your profit margin will go way up.

TY for this advice. Currently I practice table selection, but dont pay attention to seat selection. Are there any really good articles or topics that expand on this topic...?



Anyone else have advice for me?

.. a new online nickname..

Seat selection:

I think Fnord has had some great posts in LHE about seat selection. I play NL, but here are some ideas:

- you want tight players on your left 2 (multitabling nutpeddlers are perfect). Especially if they're setfarmers/nutpeddlers, they'll be folding almost everything. If they set, you should know to get away from your hand. The rest of the time, they may be folding c-bets when they miss their set.

- loose, passive, fishy players to your right. They'll limp into a pot, sometimes it seems with any two, call your preflop raise and fold to a cbet if they wiff the flop. They will also help you justify playing drawing hands in position.

- generally, try to sit across the table from a player that you find difficult to play against. Perhaps they're maniacal or particularly skilled. This will help minimize their effect on your game.

- have a look at the % of players seeing a flop. Some site support this on their table selection screen, though last time I logged on to Party, they didn't. Looser games mean that there is more dead money in the pot when you have a big holding and that you can draw with justifiable odds.

As far as I have heard you cannot get rakeback with an existing account. It's probably not going to be all that much money until you move up in stakes anyway. Just as an example, my last 10k hands at 50NL have been raked for $260. I'm not sure, but I'd guess 25NL would be about half of that, so rakeback would be around 30 bucks. Not a huge issue yet, right?

Also, get PT/PO when you can. For one tabling it's not a big deal, but it's a nice tool for playing 4 tables or more. It's a lot easier to call a push with overs when the guy has won 1/9 at showdown. (unless you are REALLY good at paying attention to everyone)

Rakeback isn't really necessary until 100nl and you're playing like 8-10k hands per week.... Until you have a decent roll I strongly suggest bonus whoring... Bonuses really help against varience and downswings. When I was bonus whoring a couple months ago, I broke even at some of the poker rooms, but finished up a massive amount because of their bonuses.

You can get PT for free at some websites bonus offers, I did mine with party poker... so if you're worried about paying for it just do the offer.

If I could offer just 1 word of advice for you to use in your poker game, it would be "position."