It's hard to be a winner

[rghy2]

Everyone comes on here and likes to talk about what a great poker player they are. There are some legitimately good poker players on here. But it seems nobody wants to admit that it is really difficult to be a consistent winner. You have to do everything you can to study the game. Watch videos, read books, and have a certain knack for picking up your own skills. Sure, there are the obvious concepts that everyone can agree on like hand selection, pot odds, position. But when you start learning all the nuances, it seems you find different opinions on how to handle different situations. I've certainly found different authors that have contradicted each other, and some that contradict my own experiences. And that's the point. You have to glean what you can from each learning source, but you have to find a way to make it your own, otherwise it will be predictable and not necessarily work.

I think most people avoid finding out if they are a winning player or not by not following BRM. It's easy to remember the great wins and forget the losses. You could be losing money all the time, but easily ignore it.

I guess I'm feeling discouraged. It's been almost 6 months since I decided I would get serious and start building my BR from nothing. My goal was to force myself into becoming a winning player before I could move up in stakes or cashout. During that time I've done what I could to improve my play, read books, watched videos, learned to apply new concepts. I do pretty good in the freerolls (my itm % isn't very high because I play too much at work). But when I take the freeroll money to the buy-ins, I struggle. I win a little bit here and there, but it seems it slowly drains away before it can build into anything worthwhile. I still haven't even managed to win enough to cashout. I know my game has improved tremendously, but the results aren't there yet. Maybe by the year mark I can make a cashout.

[TheHaversham]

I can tell you that I did the same thing more than once, building a $10k bankroll twice from virtually nothing, and you are 100% in your observations. Poker is ever-evolving, online more quickly than live, and requires constant study and attention to be successful. I can remember at one point discussing the fact that only the top 1-2% of players are long-term, consistent winners. It ain't easy, and when you consider the difference over the long term between running good and running bad, you realize that even the best player can lose money to bad runs, and the worst player can turn profit due to luck.

Bankroll mgmt is the real key, as you have noted. Seems like Chris Ferguson once attempted to build a b/r from $0 on Full Tilt and kept a blog about it or something. I remember him saying it took like a year before his b/r "stabilized" at over $1.

NO solid player joins a forum to brag about his winnings or to talk about how much he/she has won. They do it to improve their game, to bounce ideas off of others, etc. Here are my OPR stats from "the old days" on Tilt, and you can see I was barely on the cusp. PHINGROOV72 Poker Results and Statistics - Official Poker Rankings

I have friends who were real winners, who've long-since moved abroad so they could continue to make a solid living. They are still on forums, but generally don't bother with one aimed almost exclusively at providing freeroll opportunities.

Keep at it, be strict with your bankroll. Starting from $50 is almost INFINITELY easier than starting from $0. And moving up in stakes means adapting to a new set of strengths, weaknesses, and play patterns in both yourself and the competition.

[NineBirds]

yea, a lot of people are lying. poker is a tough game

[lordgort]

Indeed. I'm not a pro and I never will be, though every once in a while I might throw a few hundred bucks a liveament's way.

[jfaive]

SUPER tuff to be a consistent winner. Takes such discipline and stamina its crazy hard

[rghy2]

I still stick with my original post. But it looks like I was also having a bad run that has turned around some. Hopefully I can get back on track with the slow grind up.

[walterb1991]

Well with rakes, if everyone was the same skill level, everyone would be expected to consistently lose... But yeah, become a student of the game!!

[TheHaversham]

A group of us were comparing OPR stats one day, and it was determined that only the top 2% of poker players were consistent winners. And I saw a chart on 2+2 yrs ago where a guy had worked out the difference between running good and running bad. The same hands, same opponents, same buyins, extrapolated out over a year's time. Then he charted results if the player had always run good vs always running bad. The difference was astonishing, showing just how much luck is involved in the game. Obviously nobody ALWAYS runs good or ALWAYS runs bad, but the key is the variance. Learn to control that in your game, and you will find consistent results.

As an aside, most players don't play their BEST game, EVERY time. It's like golf. Yes, the pro's are consistent, but even they have highs and lows. Greg Norman once said that the main difference between pros and ams is that amateurs, for some reason, expect to match their best results consistently, whereas pros recognize that their best game isn't always available. So an amateur might hit a great drive once, and then lines up and plans all his drives to be like that all day, where a pro realizes that the one great drive was anomalous, and plans to hit an average drive every time. He then works to improve his average, not his best.

I know many, many great poker players who simply couldn't bring the A-game at all times, and couldn't/wouldn't recognize when they weren't playing well. Tilt can creep up slowly, so be aware.

[wagon596]

I have to say that I'm a consistant winner. I'm not trying to brag but just trying to answer the question. The deal is, I'm a freeroll/micro player. I stay away from NL cash games and most of the time I even stay away from limit games. Why you ask, it's because I suck at cash games. I just play MTT's and SNG's. Something that was a hard thing for me to learn and accept is, just because I'm a good player at low stakes doesn't mean I'll be able to win at higher stakes. So play around to find your comfort zone. I once heard a thing, and sure applies to me, don't play with scared money.

I'm a very tight player. I grind, my main objective in tournaments is to make the money. I don't think about winning the tournament. When (if) I make it to the money then I focus on making it to the final table. Then I try to survive to the final three. Now is when I start thinking about winning the tournament. You ask why I haven't thought about winning the whole thing before now ? It's cause you can't win it if you first don't get to the money, then to final table etc.

There is a saying I picked up somewhere along the road of poker, "You can't win a tournament in one hand, but you sure can lose it in one hand."

When things take a downswing, which it will for every player, I just try and keep my losses as low as possible. I try not to go on tilt and throw away more. I haven't read any books but I do pay attention to TV to try and pick up some tips there. I asked on another site for people to kind of figure how many hands of poker I've played in the last 7 years,,,most agreed it had to be somewhere in the range of 1 to 2 million hands. You see I play 8 to 10 hours a day, just about everyday, 3 to 4 tables at a time. I would hope that I've learned something from all these hands. I still have leaks in my game.

I don't win a whole lot of money, a panhandler on the street makes more than me each day. But that's not the point for me. I love the game, even when I hate it. It's a hobby that I get a return on cash wise. So play your style of play that suits you, if that doesn't work try another. Hope this helps.

[B00H00Y00]

holy shit at wagon's PO winnings... anyway, me personally... I'd never claim to be an amazing player, I'm capable don't get me wrong... I've turned $6 freeroll cash into $700 thus far on betfair... But I would play no higher than 5c/10, I admit if I go higher I'll prolly lose my month of grinding cash.