Road to Recovery

The politicians call it gambling, the gamblers call it bad luck, the regulars call it bad beats, and the pros call it a cooler. Whatever your notion, I've been experiencing it and it hurts... bad. My bankroll has suffered from third-degree burns in the last few months with some of the most amazing draw outs I've ever experienced in my poker career.

Many bloggers will talk about their incredible run of good luck, or their unbelievable run of bad luck. When they are running bad they will point fingers at other players (the Donkeys) and blame it on them. Some players will actually go the lengths to blame conspiracy; claiming that the poker sites are purposely busting them out of the game and taking their money. While all this may be true, I rather look at a more realistic reason and blame myself.

I am not going to fill this blog up with my bad beats and turn it into a Phil Hellmuth session, instead I was to look at the situation as a "what now"? Currently I have lost almost 40% of my bankroll and I do not want to lose anymore and become a statistic. Instead I want to focus on what I am doing, why I am losing, and what has been different in my game recently. I point out recently because before my terrible swing of misfortune I was a profitable player. Unfortunately lately this hasn't seemed to be the case.

What Now?

I put a lot of thought into what I need to do and how to move forward without risking any more damage to my bankroll. I have decided that I will start out with $100 on Full Tilt and attempt to work it up to $500 in the next couple months. This puts my current bankroll at minimal risk and allows me to focus on some goals. Once I reach $500 I will set a new goal; so forth and so on. During this process I will report any major victories (or huge losses) while I work towards the goal. I will also share with everyone the way I go about reaching the goal (i.e., what limits I played, how much I won at those limits, tools used to analyze myself, books read, concepts understood, etc). When I (hopefully) reach my goal I am hoping that you, the reader, will have a series of good, informative blogs to read. With these post, I always encourage feedback and comments. I definitely want to hear your opinions on theories and concepts that I will discuss, so don't be shy - please reply!

Current Plan of Action

It's important to me that I accomplish my goal without having to reload on Full Tilt. I never once had to reload on a site for busting out and I really do not want to start now. I want to ensure that my bankroll will last through all the variations of the ups and downs this beloved game can bring you. To do so, I will follow the bankroll rules of Chris Ferguson. For those who do not want to read through Chris' post I will sum it up for you:

1. Never buy into a cash game or a Sit & Go with more than 5 percent of your total bankroll (there is an exception for the lowest limits: allowed to buy into any game with a buy-in of $2.50 or less).


2. Never buy into a multi-table tournament for more than 2 percent of your total bankroll. You are allowed to buy into any multi-table tournament that costs $1.


3. If at any time during a No-Limit or Pot-Limit cash-game session the money on the table represents more than 10 percent of your total bankroll, you must leave the game when the blinds reach you.

The next step is analyzing myself and really digging deep to figure out where and why I am losing my money. I have always been a player who done self reviews the old fashion way. I reviewed my hand history one hand at a time and used a composition book to make notes about my play. I have always heard and read about programs that can do a lot of this for you like PokerTracker and PokerOffice, but I never put much thought into them. My opinion on the matter has always been that when you play at a live game you will not have a computer telling you what you need to do. Today's players rely on applications to tell them what they need to do in certain situations. Instead of playing poker and trying to get into the heads of their follow opponents, they follow push-shove calculations reported from a third party program and base all their plays on what the computer tells them. Lately my opinion is starting to change. I've heard PokerTracker mentioned a few times in some of the more recent books I've read. It's been noted as great tool to analyze your hands, fix leaks in your game, find leaks in your opponent's game, and use the information to capitalize on potential profitable situations. When I read such verbiage in books from Sklansky and others, I always held it with a grain of salt. I would tell myself that those programs are all well and good, but at a real table your not going to have those tools telling you what you need to do. It wasn't until I was watching a recent video on PokerXFactor when Eric Haber mentioned the use of PokerTracker. During his commentary he mentioned something on the lines of "if your not using such a program your operating at a huge disadvantage because it's very likely that your opponents are tracking you". Then it dawned on me. Whether I disagree with the use of such programs or not, it doesn't really matter. My opponents are using such programs against me, so not only do I need to fight them - but also their computer. When I win a sit-and-go or a tournament, I had to triumph the player and his odds calculator. To me it's a greater accomplishment, but a silly one at that. It's silly because I too can be mining for information to use against my opponent which would make that part of the game even. Now all I need to be able to do is out think my opponent and I should be able to win.

I've always considered poker as an "equal" game. Every player is dealt the same amount of good cards and bad cards and every player is offered the same amount of information about each other while they are at the table. It's the players who know what to do with the good cards, and know how to read their opponents that end up profitable at the year's end. With the hype of the Internet, poker oods are even more important - and players are using any tool in the world to provide them with information about their table and their opponents. If everyone at my table is mining for data, and I am not, then poker is no longer an "equal" game. I am operating at a disadvantage as soon as I sit down.

Disadvantage no more, I have purchased PokerTracker and I am currently analyzing my play. I have been focusing on where I lose the most chips and why. I believe that after some thorough studying I will be able to plug some of my leaks and hopefully make me a more solid/consistant player. I am also messing around with Poker HUD. I never checked out such a program before and I must admit it does seem overwhelming at first. I really need to figure out what numbers I should watch for and how exactly I can use this information against my opponents. (If anyone is savvy in Poker HUD and willing to spend some time to teach me, I would be grateful).

The third and final step I want to talk about in the god-forsakingly long post is taking notes while reading. I have a tendency to read books and assume I will remember all the information I've read. This is obviously false since I am not gifted enough to remember something after I've only read it once. Moving forward, I will reread my current book when I am finished it. This time I will take notes on everything I find important. I will do this on every new book I read and will eventually reread all my books so I can take notes on them. When I am done with a book I should have a healthy amount of notes that I can organize and put in a format much like the one's used in Cliff notes. Such notes I am considering sharing in my blog. I feel the more I go over the notes (writing them on paper, transferring them to computer, then blogging about them) the more I will understand and remember the concepts from the book. Hopefully through a repetitive process I can retain the lessons longer which will force me to have a better understanding of the game. It will also enrich the content of this blog, hopefully giving current readers some greater insights and maybe capturing a few new readers.

Conclusion

This has been a fairly long post. But I think it's important that I speak publicly about where I stand. I do not want to become a blogger who only blogs about their accomplishments. When I first started this blog I wrote that this blog will track my poker career moving forward, through both the ups and downs. I want to keep honest to that part, and I hope that the information here can someday aid another player who experiencing the same problems in their career. Maybe this and future post will inspire them, help them get back on track, and get them winning again. If anything, I hope it helps me do the same.