The Evolution and De-Evolution of a Poker Player
Saturday, November 7, 2009 - C00LHandNuke
Five years ago when I started to play poker “professionally” I was a bad player in a lot of ways – I played too many hands out of position and played too passively in bad situations. These bad tendencies were carried over from when I played poker primarily for recreation (in other words, the last 20 years of my life). But I was also patient and really good at reading people. This allowed me to take some appropriate risks and make really big laydowns. The net result of my bad habits and natural ability made me a winning player, but just barely.
In the beginning I played live poker exclusively. I had never played a hand of online poker before 2005. Up until this time, I thought the internet was only good for shopping and porn. As I began to take poker more seriously, I studied and improved my game by reading books by Brunson, Sklansky and Harrington. I also began to discuss hands with other players on a regular basis. But my game really began to flourish when I started to play online and could play many more hands per hour. I think this is a really common path for poker evolution.
In the spring of 2005 I decided that I needed some experience with the new breed of online players that I was hearing about and that I would probably be facing at the WSOP. So I deposited $600 on a site and never looked back. I started with sit n goes and was making money pretty easily. Soon my bankroll was built up and I was playing some of the biggest buy in tourneys available.
The rapid pace of on line play really accelerated my learning curve. It was also extremely lucrative compared to the somewhat limited action that was available to me in Reno, NV. I could always count on a game being there, never had to wait in a queue and didn’t have the “hassle” of driving 10 minutes to a casino (yeah, I’m spoiled). It was then that my game really started to mature. I was playing pretty well and making decent money. The highly mathematical nature of online play worked great for me (I have a degree in engineering and a minor in mathematics). But there is always room for improvement. In the last year I’ve been working closely with Annie Duke and her coaching has improved my game by an order of magnitude.
But amidst this continued improvement, I’ve run head long into a really confusing situation: In five years of professional play I’m endanger of recording the first losing live tournament year on my books. I’m not stuck big, but I am stuck. This really bothers me. Sure there have been several moments during the year where if I hadn’t gotten unlucky, I would’ve had a cash big enough to put me in the black: I had over half the chips in play five-handed at a final table only to take 6 bad beats from the same bad player for 5th place, I had set over set at the WSOP Main Event, a two-outer on the turn late on day 2 of the Aruba 5k and several others. But the truth is that in many ways this year, I have de-evolved in some ways as a player.
Basically, I have allowed those people reading skills that made me successful early to get a little rusty. I blame the internet. When playing online, it’s very rare for me to fold Aces or Kings (or any other overpair for that matter) on a flop or turn unless something about the board or betting pattern combined with previous history just screams “you’re beat!”
Also, I think my patience has suffered recently. Again, this may be partly due to the rapid fire, multi tabling experience that I’ve grown accustomed to online. If I bust out of a tourney online, it’s barely a blip on the radar because in all likelihood, I’m in four others already. And if I’m card dead on one table for 100 hands straight, no big deal – I’m probably getting good cards in the 500 hands I’m playing at other tables. Not so in live play. If you bust out in the first level of a tourney, you may not be able to get back into action for a few hours, or even a day. But I think this year I’ve had trouble readjusting to the slower pace of live play. I’ve gotten frustrated and as a result, got my money in bad for my tourney life on too many occassions.
So what’s this all mean to me? Well, I’m focusing on resurrecting my live play skill set. I’ll also continue to use the cyber world to make money and hone my situational skills. And if I do, I’m pretty sure I’ll still end the year in the black. Wish me luck!
Tags: Aces, Bad Beat, coaching, evolution, Kings, online, Poker Poker Poker, Professional
