Sunday, February 05, 2006
Bankroll Discussion
This topic has been coming up a lot lately among my group of friends and while I'm now in the midst of a 90BB downswing over my last 3 sessions, it seemed a prescient subject to blog about. But I think I'm going to take a weird, around the bend kind of path to the point, so bear with me a bit.
A few weeks ago I was out to dinner with some friends and saw a couple that I haven't spent much time with over the last year. Eventually the topic of conversation came around to what I've been doing with myself and they were very surprised to find out what I've been doing for a living. The husband started telling me about how he had been playing recently on the play money tables online and about how much success he had by being very aggressive, constantly raising and reraising, and it surprised him. We talked a bit more and I mentioned that I thought that was a very important key to success in poker overall and he countered that he didn't think that he'd be able to do the same thing when real money was on the line.
There's also a player who all of us know through the local games that had been on quite a run since around October of last year. By virtue of what can only be an incredible run of luck he had amassed a pretty huge bankroll, and many of us agreed it was simply a matter of time before he went broke. He was simply overplaying his hands and somehow not losing or making horrible preflop card selections and they still held up. Well, he's been sight unseen for about a month now, and through the grapevine we've heard that he's taking a break because he had a "bad run of cards".
One of the thin lines between success and failure in poker, in my opinion, is the line between confidence and arrogance. Confidence projects to other players, it shows in your actions and leads to ultimate success because you are playing within yourself in a game that you can handle. Arrogance can lead to failure on a number of levels. It can grate other players who may then take it upon themselves to come after you at every opportunity or it can make players who would otherwise play poorly attempt to play solid poker. It can lead you to play games that you are unprepared to play or not properly bankrolled for because you think you can "beat" the game.
So while it's important to challenge yourself by moving up either in limit or buy-in, it should also be done with very careful consideration. Just because you have the money to play $100 buy in heads up matches, or have been on such a monster run you go play $5-10 NL when all you've been playing is $1-2, does not make it the most intelligent decision.
I've been under the weather and slacking again about posting but hopefully I can get things back on track here soon.
A few weeks ago I was out to dinner with some friends and saw a couple that I haven't spent much time with over the last year. Eventually the topic of conversation came around to what I've been doing with myself and they were very surprised to find out what I've been doing for a living. The husband started telling me about how he had been playing recently on the play money tables online and about how much success he had by being very aggressive, constantly raising and reraising, and it surprised him. We talked a bit more and I mentioned that I thought that was a very important key to success in poker overall and he countered that he didn't think that he'd be able to do the same thing when real money was on the line.
There's also a player who all of us know through the local games that had been on quite a run since around October of last year. By virtue of what can only be an incredible run of luck he had amassed a pretty huge bankroll, and many of us agreed it was simply a matter of time before he went broke. He was simply overplaying his hands and somehow not losing or making horrible preflop card selections and they still held up. Well, he's been sight unseen for about a month now, and through the grapevine we've heard that he's taking a break because he had a "bad run of cards".
One of the thin lines between success and failure in poker, in my opinion, is the line between confidence and arrogance. Confidence projects to other players, it shows in your actions and leads to ultimate success because you are playing within yourself in a game that you can handle. Arrogance can lead to failure on a number of levels. It can grate other players who may then take it upon themselves to come after you at every opportunity or it can make players who would otherwise play poorly attempt to play solid poker. It can lead you to play games that you are unprepared to play or not properly bankrolled for because you think you can "beat" the game.
So while it's important to challenge yourself by moving up either in limit or buy-in, it should also be done with very careful consideration. Just because you have the money to play $100 buy in heads up matches, or have been on such a monster run you go play $5-10 NL when all you've been playing is $1-2, does not make it the most intelligent decision.
I've been under the weather and slacking again about posting but hopefully I can get things back on track here soon.
