Operation: GYHOYA

Otherwise known as Operation - Get Your Head Outta Your Ass.

I've been playing online poker since mid-November. I had been playing a live game at least once a week since September, but these players didn't make me any better because of their loose, friendly type of playing (playing another player's best hand against them, playing any hand because they can, etc...).

Well, I decided to try online poker after getting sick of their play. I deposited $20 onto Titanpoker because it was the cheapest minimum buyin I could find, and I figured I could test the water at $30 cheaper than any other site.

I got up to around $40 pretty quickly, but I was playing out of my bankroll (I don't remember what stakes), and ended up losing it all due to tilting. I let it go for a couple days, and then deposited $20 more. Again, that was gone real quickly, but this time due to bad beats and suckouts, I could feel my game getting better.

Time passed, I kept loading money onto Titan, and kept breaking even, then losing it all in one session of bad beats. Then, I found these Jackpot SNGs. It was a $20+3 (Killer rake, but oh well) 6 max, and top THREE got paid. I figured this was a no-lose situation. And boy was I right. Within three days, I was up to $550, and feeling on top of the world.

I talked about it on FTR (I was introduced to the site a couple days before I started the SNGs), and they said it'd be gone within a couple days. You were all right. I only placed in around 8 of 24 SNGs one day and was down to around $300. The same thing happened the next day, and I left my $100 on there, while putting $100 into PokerStars.

I started playing ring on Stars, and within 10 minutes I was up to $150. By the end of the night, I was back to $100, but still okay. Then I tried the $10+1 SNGs, and that didn't work at all. I placed in around 33%, but was not making any money. Decided to go back to ring, ended up having horrible beats (QQ with a flopped set losing to AA happened around 5 times) and within a few days, that was gone too.

So I did the refer a friend + 1st deposit bonus at PartyPoker. I put $100 in, and now I'm at around $145. I've been playing 'gambling poker' for this last month, but now I'm ready to start playing working poker. I really hate manual labor, and want to make enough to support myself on just my bankroll (or maybe with a crappy part-time job to keep a steady income coming.

I'm playing the NL10 game while it still lets me, and I'm not doing too bad. I'm playing 4 tables, and can keep up pretty well, so I think I'm going to stay there. I treat myself to a couple of MTTs just to mix it up, but always seem to get sucked-out on (AQ to A4 tonight). I did make some money in a Shootout, so I think I'm gonna try those out and see how that goes too.

My Goals for early 2006:
Current BR: $140
- Play solid poker, trying to fix leaks.
- Improve my 6-max play.
- Try to keep myself from tilting.
- Double my bankroll.

I know I can play solid poker, I know I can. I just end up getting impatient and playing hands that I shouldn't because the cards aren't coming. I would play 5-6 tables to keep me from growing impatient, but then when I hit hands on 3 or more tables, I won't be able to keep up and I'll make mistakes.

Keeping myself from tilting will, without a doubt, be my biggest problem to overcome. I always say I won't tilt, but then I do, and it seems like I do it subconsciously. I think if I solve that, I'll be a better player, and won't lose my stacks to shitty play.

I'm not setting an exact goal on when I want to double my bankroll and hit my other goals, because then I'll be too results-oriented and will only look at my bankroll at the end of the night, not how I played each hand.

If anyone has any suggestions, ANYTHING AT ALL, I'd be willing to listen. I really want to start seeing a profit and getting regular checks in the mail, and I'm willing to work as hard as I can to achieve this, so any help would be great...

Here's hoping 2006 will be better than 2005!

The best way I learnt to play rock-like was playing way out of BR. Because that is bad, here's an idea:
Set aside 50$. Play 50NL, just one table. Imagine that this was ALL your money. While this will not make you as much money as possible, it WILL teach you to be goddamned disciplined and you'll only be playing top hands, thus very few hands. Don't worry if you lose them due to badbeats, but if you DO lose them, consider how you played, consider whether you were more disciplined or not.
Do this either until you lose those 50$ or until you turn them into 150 or (if you manage that quickly) until you feel you're disciplined enough preflop to actually give the REAL game a try and play 10NL properly bankrolled.
Hell, it was a great exercise for me.

Either that, OR pick up a hands chart and swear by it. You'll drop it eventually, but at the start only play the TOP hands there, no exceptions, no "hmmm this KTo looks good against a raise".

After solving the preflop problem, you'll be more disciplined postflop as well, because you'll get used to discipline in poker. From there on, it's just practice practice practice.
And post hands on the forum. and use the converter when you do.
And good luck.

The $20+$3 rake seems unbeatable to me, even if you played well eneugh to beat that sick rake, your time would be better spent elsewhere.

2 things...

Firstly, good luck to you THaC.

Secondly, trying to say GYHOYA out loud (as an actual word) gives me hours of endless fun.

After getting staked for the $20+2 180 man SNG, I picked up 4th for $290. I've been having a bunch of beats after that. <3 Variance and 2-outters.

Hm... so I stopped playing for a while. Just started back up on Feb 28th with $125, and right now, I'm at $2050! <3