Sorry for taking a while to reply.

To answer your question of how I go about organising things, almost all of what I do now comes through Holdem Manager. Before that, I used to keep figures in a spreadsheet, but there is now no need with this great technology. I would really recommend getting it, to start taking the game, improving and keeping records, very seriously.

It gives you a detailed graphs of your ups and downs, and so lets you know exactly how much you are in profit or loss. Another interesting feature is that it tell’s you your $EV dollars, that is how much you could have expected to win without the element of luck. So, if your $EV dollars is exactly the same as your actual winnings/loss, this means that you have exactly average luck. The $EV is very useful, as it can confirm or deny suspicions about good or bad luck; for some players, it would be very useful in convinving them that they are not as unlucky as they might think.

Holdem Manager also reverses the need to keep notes, as you can use the HUD display on each player. The question of how much of the avaliable detail you should use is one that splits all poker players, but I am of the opinion that you should use as much detail as you possibly can, as long as you feel comfortable with it.

In terms of thinking about hands, this is something that I try to do as often as I possibly can. I do it especially with live poker, as hands can be more interesting and memorable, and the section on this site called “my greatest mistakes,” is something I started using to effectivley keep notes of my mistakes. I think it is so important for a poker player to be humble, and keep on acknowledging that each tournament or session will always lead to a few mistakes, and awareness of these can help them improve.

How have things been going since you first started back again?

All the best mate, good luck

Im just gunna be cheeky now and ask you something you might tell me to get lost lol

Can you give me a breakdown of what you do on your poker work days.

I mean like…. Do you hold a spread sheet of your Bankroll -/+
Starting bankroll/finishing bankroll etc…
Do you keep records of the hands you win and lose?
Do you use the notes facility on 32red for each player u play? if so what kind of notes do you keep?
Any other things you can think of that any poker player who wants to slowly win in the long run?

This whole project im setting myself is going to be completely changing the method of poker i currently use. So i want to make sure im starting on the right track and then pick the rest up as i go along.

Thanks and i hope im not being too personal.

Ederz

Thanks very much for your comment mate, good to hear from you on here.

I’m glad you’re recovered from your illness, but sorry that’s it’s been a rough road with the poker recently.

Here’s the bad news, at least in my opinion: in the last 3/4 years, the standard of internet poker has increased sharply. Yours is an interesting case as you have been away completely during that time, and so I wonder how much of a change you have noticed? There is just far more solid play, and now very few big fish around, who just give their money away. We’ve got the recession to thank for making this even worse!

You might well still be good enough to beat it, but unfortunately the increase in standard means that we should all expect to be beating the game at quite a smaller rate, and with a lot more “variance.”

“Variance” of course is the word that describes the twists and turns in luck that mean that even a winning player cannot win every sesison. Instead, a winning player will eventually win by going up, down, up, up, down, up, up, down- if you see what I mean!

I think for this reason 10 buyins is probably a bit short, and you maybe consider 20-25?
To be honest, I think it’s really dangerous for anyone in poker to assume they’re going to win in the long run, and set expectations based on this. Although it sounds like you will win, it’s so hard for us to tell, as all poker players (including myself) judge their form in a very biased way. If they’re winning, they must be playing well; if they’re losing, it must be bad luck.

I’ve actually tried to create a system for myself in poker where it’s fail safe as to whether I win or not. I do this by living with two completely different pools of money. My “normal life” pool gets paid into by my jobs, like the poker magazine writing, and this blog. My poker pool is then completely independent, and though it’s healthy, I can assure you has had some big ups and downs!

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s important that whatever you want to set as your bankroll for the challenge is an amount you’ll be happy to lose, as we always have to assume the worst case scenario. By setting realistic (or even pessimisitic!) expectations, it’s all the nicer then if things do go well.

There is one more thing I would advise you to do, and hopefully you’ll find it fun. One of the big developments that has fuelled this unfortunate increase in standard are the internet training sites, where the experts share their wisdom through videos. It might well be worth taking a break from the game for a week, and just concentrating on checking these kind of sites out, as there is so much we can learn.

And that’s really my biggest rule for giving yourself the best chance of beating the games. Even if you feel you are better than the table, there will still be things you can learn from their game. Moreover, even if you have played well, if you think back over a session, you will be surprised at the number of things you could have done better!

Good luck with everything, and let me know how it goes.

Stuart

I’ve played you a few times a long time ago, Approx 4 years ago i played for a living on Lads and was quite successful there, making around £150 a day. I took a long break from poker after some illness issues and now that im back to normal i want to take up poker part time. I’ve been back playing for around 6 months, At first it was just for the love of the game, and i always stick to deposits around the £30 mark. Most of the time i lose within 30 mins but sometimes i win around 10x my deposit and lose it all on the next table.

I cant work out what im doing wrong. I know my bankroll management is completely shocking, always playing way out of my bankroll…. But im useless with money nowadays. But i dont think my type of play has changed much at all so i dont understand why im losing all the time. I even lost a €100 pot with JJ vs 33, the flop was KJ3 we both pushed allin and the river was a 3. I also lost AA all in against, amazingly AA! the board was all hearts and yes u guessed it, he had the Ace of hearts!.

Basicly, im back to being an amature! So i’d like to ask, do you have any advice for someone like me who is going to challenge himself to turn a £500 deposit into £5,000 within 3 months. I’ve set myself this challenge as iwant to try and make £50 day.

Is 10 buyins enough?

Thanks for any advice u can give me!

M_Ederz

However, I feel there is one very simple rule for any poker player which encapsulates all the bits of advice I could give. It is a resolution which sounds so easy, but very few people manage to pick up. The resolution is simply to LEARN every time you play.

I believe that it actually should be a very easy way to become a good player, but it easy to see why it proves so difficult for many players. Ego will issue be at the centre of poker, and this brings a problem. To learn from a poker game is to admit that you may have been wrong, and this is difficult for alot of poker players. Humility is a difficult thing, especially when it can leave you regretting something you have done. If you are going to set yourself the challenge of learning every time you play, you will also need to master the skill of being able to forgive yourself.

The best thing I ever did in poker was to realise that I was a bit crap. Even if I am slightly less so now, there will still be a number of mistakes to identify every time I play, and a wealth of stuff to learn from. There are a number of questions you can be constantly asking yourself. They will help you improve at the game, even if you decide that the answer is “no, I couldn’t have done any better.” Try to get your mind racing during and after the game by asking yourself questions like:

- “I just doubled someone up with queens agaisnt aces. It was a tough spot, but was there any way I could have got away for less?”

- “I just won a nice pot after making a value bet with a rivered flush. He called very quickly though; could I have extracted more from my hand? What do I think would have been the perfect amount to bet?”

- “I checked down that pot with ace-king high, and he won it with a pocket pair of twos. How could I have best turned my hand into a bluff?”

If you are going to fill your mind with thinking about the game, there is one big challenge you need to set yourself. The issue that blocks the thinking of most players is that they spend too much of their time thinking about luck. Not only do they think things like “that’s just so unfair that I had queens against aces, that player is so lucky,” but they waste time counting up how many good hands they have seen, or how long it has been since they saw a big pair.

Therefore, it is quite a big challenge to never think about luck AT ALL, but one that is well worth undertaking. Not only will it help you improve your game, it is far more satisfying to spend your time thinking about all the complexities of this great game.