How much have you lost at Texas Hold 'Em?

I consider myself a serious player. I've tracked for some time my win percentages, my bottom line, my tournament versus cash game success, what hands trip me up, when I've played well (and why), and sure, when I've played badly.

After quite a long time honing my game, I've settled on playing NL Hold 'Em almost exclusively, primarily in tournaments, primarily live. I play in cash games a couple of times a month just to shake things up a little; I play like a stone and I'm slightly net positive on them. On the net, I'm down slightly, because I use it mostly to experiment, or to keep sharp when I haven't played in a while. Cash games and on-line play pretty much even out for me.

My greatest strength as a player is reading other players -- the game is really tailor-made for journalists -- and of course, on-line play limits that. I'm not the sort of player who could make a living on-line, at least not now.

In live tournament play, I've averaged a profit of about $1,100 a month since last July. My biggest win was $4,000 (came 2nd in a $100 buy-in with 180 players); my biggest single tournament loss is a $550 tourney that I failed to cash in. I hit the money 35 percent of the time, which I feel pretty good about, but I don't have as many wins as I would like. I'm a little streaky, which I would like to fix. I'm on a run now where I've cashed in six straight tournaments, and I'm feeling confident. I didn't cash once in the month of March, and I found that slump a little like a baseball schnide. Just hard to break out of.

I'd tell any player wanting to get better to keep similar stats. I've discovered things like, I play better in the day than at night, suggesting that when I'm tired, I need to admit it and maybe not play, even if I feel like playing. And -- this I found interesting -- my Achilles heel hand was A-K.

If I busted from a tournament early, more often that not, I was holding A-K. It's a pushing hand, I've come to realize, not a calling hand. A lot of amateur players overplay that hand badly, and I was guilty of that, too.

I like to think that in a few years, I'll be able to take a shot at spending at least part of the year playing poker exclusively. My closer goal is trying to pay for my mortgage with poker. I need to up my average $500 a month, to $1,600, which is one or two more decent cashes -- but over several months and years. It's been a bit like a golfer trying to break 90 or whatever... I've plateaued a little bit. But I'm hoping for a breakthrough soon.

Anyway, again, if you're serious about playing poker and getting better, keep some stats. The truth of things might surprise you.

 

Completely agree with you on A-K. It can be a great hand, but it gets A LOT of calls, mostly from 10-10, 9-9, 8-8 and the ilk. I swear, when I get in a race with A-K, I tend to lose every time. I hate that hand. I almost want to go all-in with A-K on most hands, just to get someone to REALLY commit to it, instead of just raising 5XBB. People love to limp in with crap there (like when someone limps into that bet with Q-8 and the board shows J47J8). Love losing to a bullshit 8 on the river ...

 

What people tend to forget is that AK is nothing more than an ace with a really big kicker.

As for me I have the hardest time going between tournaments and cash games because it is two different styles of play. If I play both, bouncing back and forth between the two, that's when my game suffers because I'm either playing too tight in the tourneys or too loose in the ring. So I just stick to the one or two table sit and go's on Stars and come out pretty decent. Once or twice a month if I'm fairly happy with how I'm playing I'll play in a larger multi-table tourney.

In a year and a half or so I'm up about $1,000, not great, but it did help by the future Mrs. Cape Fear's engagement ring. I made the mistake of telling her that so now she wants me to win enough for a house.

 

After about two years in which i showed a net profit of about $2K, I am up $22K for 2006. Tourney winnings are higher, but unfortunately I am not a winning cash game player at $5-10NL.

Something clicked around January and things have really gone well since then. Even then I've had to weather a couple of $2-3K downswings before hitting another nice score. I play pretty much exclusively online, although I did play (and bubble) one WSOP event this year.

I really believe if I had Sundays off to play the online majors I might make a real score one of these days.

And I agree, learning to devalue AK and AQ really makes a difference.

 

probably the biggest mistake a player can make is to try to beat a game without a sufficient bankroll. If you have a $100 roll that you're depositing into an online site (and, for the record, I don't play online) you'll be able to weather a few mediocre-to-bad sessions at, say, .50-1 or 1-2 limit. But really you should have 300 BBs or more to really attack a game (meaning over a longer period of time, not one or two sessions). As has been mentioned earlier, even great players have losing sessions. And, if you're like me (decidedly not a "great" player), you take a couple of crappy beats and start making loose calls out of position, and next thing you know a bad session has deteriorated into a disaster. If you have a sufficient bankroll behind you, you give yourself the opportunity to regroup, plug the leaks, focus and play another day instead of standing on the rail or worse, dipping into your pocket for the grocery money.

Downward swings happen. Just a few weeks ago I was coming off a nice four-session win streak, had made a couple of textbook moves that worked beautifully and took a little break from my growing pile of chips, thinking, "I've got this game CLOCKED." And then I proceeded to not get a playable hand for two hours. Poker's a wonderful game in many ways, and it's never afraid to kick you in the teeth when you deserve it.

 

Well put. And you get so many people who will say ... "I just CAN'T lay down big slick." Sure you can. About six months back in a home game, I raised big relative to the blinds with big slick and the only player left in the hand immediately raised back, going all-in. In my younger days, I would have called immediately, but knowing how this guy played, I thought about it for a minute and really ran that immediate call through my mind. I figured he had a huge made hand, so I cut my losses and folded. He turned over A-A.

So, yeah, you can get away from big slick.

 

I think it was Dan Harrington I read about who either limps with AK or goes all-in with AK depending on whether his watch is :00-:30 of the hour or :30-59 of the hour.

Nobody likes AK, but if you get your progressive continuation bets right a lot of times you can get your opponents off their hands.

JJ, however, is a jerk.

 

I haven't lost a cent, and haven't won a cent.

I don't play. ;D

 

Just to kick this back up again because I like talking and reading about poker ...

On the subject of tells, what are some good ones you're able to spot when you're playing live?

 

The only consistent one I've seen is the "sneak a peek at my stack" when I guy gets dealt a monster.

Which isn't all that helpful, especially if the guy has a small stack to begin with. But it is a reflex you can catch people on.

Overall, though, spotting personal tells is overrated compared to remebering how a guy has bet before, which, for me, can be a lot harder.

 

Good point.

 

Losses: Are we talking in one session or over the past few years?

I lost almost $200 playing 3-6 at the Stardust earlier this year. The cards went cold, cold, cold for me. I'd get AdKd and the board would have five clubs on it. But since I was up $900 for the trip, I wasn't bothered by the downswing.

Like Jones, I keep serious records of my gambling. I have Excel spreadsheets for my poker play and horseracing wagering. I'm in the black in both. Not as much as Jones is, but then again I don't play nearly that often. Though that might be changing now that FullTilt supports Macs.

I'm a limit specialist, because I'm a rock. And it seems most low-limit players don't pick up on that fact. That usually leads to profits, though I've had some serious donk-beats put on me.