Op: Admit I suck, and fix it.

This is technically my second operation, but the first one didn't get going anywhere. I have had some trouble admitting to myself and other members of this site, that I am not that good at poker. I don't lie, just let on that I am better than I actually am. I am not sure if this is how others here view me, but it is what I have tried to project.

Anyway, FUCK all that pride and belonging shit. I'm tired of breaking even. I'm tired of grinding for three months, winning almost enough to move to a new level, and having to withdraw. I want to be able to win more consistently, and gain more experience. I will do this by using FTR to it's fullest. I will be reading articles, watching videos, and posting hand histories. I will take the criticism and be the idiot for awhile.

Please, feel free to check out this thread from time to time to see the progress I have made, my personal reviews of the material on and off FTR, and my honest opinion on a lot of things that I would like to give my honest opinion on.

do you ever play low stakes 6-max on prima? cos there's a player there called unibomber1 that I have a few hands on and could give some comments on.
Also, I think bonuses are a good way to go for bankroll building - check it out...
Anyway, good luck regardless!

Good for you. No one ever choked to death swallowing his pride. By admitting your faults and shortcomings you have opened the door for yourself to improve.

Please don't be embarrassed to post particularly bad hand histories. You might think to yourself "Well, I know that was stupid and I won't do it again" and then keep it under your hat. Just post it! At the very least it will serve as motivation to play better so you won't have to post it for the world to see. Plus, objective observers may be able to pinpoint the underlying cause of certain bad plays that you weren't aware of yourself.

Best of luck. If you remain honest with yourself I have no doubts that you'll see dramatic improvement in your game.

Good Luck with your goal. I know when I finally stopped trying to pretend I was good that FTR really helped me out. It still is, I know it'll help you too. Like grnydrowave2 said staying honest will be a huge help to your game.

First step to fix a problem is admitting there is one. Good luck with fixing your game.

Played only 100 hands tonight, but I plan on keeping this thread as updated as possible. Hopefully, it will be a good timeline to see how a player improves through the use of information on FTR.

Here is a hand that is standard in my book, but I wanna check these standards and see if I got them right:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

BB ($0.74)
UTG ($3.58)
MP ($0.48)
Hero ($4.86)
SB ($5.75)

Preflop: Hero is Button with T, Q.
2 folds, Hero raises to $0.08, SB calls $0.07, 1 fold.

Flop: ($0.18) J, 5, Q (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.13, SB calls $0.13.

Turn: ($0.44) J (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.24, SB calls $0.24.

River: ($0.92) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks.

Final Pot: $0.92

Kick ass, unibomber

I'd check behind on that river as well, a worse hand isn't calling another bet there very often. And if he has a J he's almost certainly C/Ring you, which would suck.

Hey all, thanks for your posts. I really appreciate the support that I get from the community here.

I wish I had something interesting to post. I am currently in a Marksmanship Coaches Course. It requires a lot of individual study, and I will be shooting all next week. This makes it hard to get in a bunch, if any hands. I have also not been reading any new articles or books lately, so that I do not push any of the new marksmanship knowledge to the back of my mind. When I do get something interesting though, it will go right here.

Poker has been completely absent from my life until this weekend. For three weeks I have not played a hand. NOT ONE!!

I did play this weekend though, and had a good time of it too. I went to my buddy's house, where we have just started playing a small friendly $20 tourney on Fridays. We used to do this until some of our regulars went to Iraq. Now they are back, and I can start raping them again. Anyway, I took first there. I won a bunch of money on the UFC fights on saturday. Anderson Silva is my boy. Then, in my triumphant return to the FTR community, I took second in The Gauntlet game VII. So I think I am back for real, and I plan on going full on and playing some serious poker.

Also, I plan on reading a few FTR articles, and posting my opinions here tomorrow.

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I think I may actually start playing poker again. I have been doing so many other things, that even my downtime has been full of shit. Right now though, I am inspired. I think it's time for me to hit the gindstone. I'm gonna get back into that learning phase that lasted for such a short time when I first started playing. I'm gonna soak up all the information I can. I'm gonna put in twice as many hands as ever before. I'm gonna make some real money. Not just a couple hundred in three months. It's time to step up.

The review thing is not a lie either. I will start posting my own personal reviews on FTR and other poker information.

I have heard about you uni1. Someone asked me if I was you before. Unibomber is actually my ring name. I fight MMA. That's where it came from.

This whole poker hiatus thing is pissing me off. I want to play sooo bad. I just can't always find the time. I have been making time lately, but I don't know how long that will last. I have resolved to play a tourney a night. I switched my main focus to tourneys, and SnGs for now to get over my "bored of poker" hump.

I have been going slowly through HoH for the last couple of days, and here is my personal opinion thus far.

I think that he has put together a very understandable and studiable book. It has good concepts presented in a way that the beginner can accept and learn. Two things though. I think he rambles a little, and therefor the book has a wierd order to it. He tends to go off on tangents, then write something like, "I will discuss more on this topic in Section 4." This may just be the fact that all poker concepts tend to blend together so tightly. However, I don't remember seeing that quite as much in other people's writings. Second, I think he has mixed the terms aggressive and loose. He talks about an aggressive style player having a wider opening hand range. As far as I understand, that is not true. LOOSE player plays more hands. I also think that his descriptions may have come from an earlier time, when these words were used defferently.

Well, that's my BUMP and attempt to keep this OP thread going. Thanks for reading, and commenting if you decide to.

Almost forgot, I watched all of EllipsesJeff's $8 rebuy videos. They are the single best video resource for a multi table tourney that I have come across yet. EJ explains his thought process clearly throughout the tournament, without cluttering things up. He shows you how to use abstract thinking combined with basic math to make decisions in real time. Then, he goes back to the hand (he is using the PT gametime table) and explains the deeper thought behind it. Thanks Jeff if you read this. Those videos are invaluable.

Been doin' pretty well with the time I get. I am up about 5 buyins in 1375 hands, and the 3k before that I was up about 5 buyins also. I have lost about half in my MTT experiments, but I will get good at those too.

I have also set myself a new goal:

I am at $150 or so now, and once I get to $250, I will purchase Ace HUD, and a new monitor. Then, I get serious. At $50NL I can supplement my income nice enough. I also will not be making enough to hit the tax scale yet. So, I push hard through $25NL (which I know I can beat) and start playing at least 5k hands a month at $50NL.

I guess that's more than one goal, but I think they're all along the same lines I think. Anyway, ON WITH THE GRIND!!!