Raise or Fold:  A Year of Risky Business

Writing and playing poker as if they were activities worth doing well.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Why We Don't Ask Questions We Don't Want Answers To

I finally decided that I needed to get some software to track my online results and to experiment with a heads-up display on cash tables. Being a Mac user, my only option was Poker Copilot. It's nowhere near as fully-featured as PokerTracker, but it's a start.

And now I know why I stopped keeping careful tabs on my online results.

BECAUSE THEY SUCK.

And not just a little. My cash results are abysmal, and my tournament results are little better. And this is over a 50K hand sample, so it's no statistical blip.

I think I'm showing a net profit in my non-hold'em tournaments (specifically Razz and HORSE). But I wouldn't swear to that. After all, I thought I was at least breaking even in hold'em online; if this software is to be believed, I should be so lucky. (Maybe if I were getting rakeback I'd be a breakeven player. Maybe.)

Well. Time to take a deep breath and start over with new levels of rigor, and at consistently lower stakes.

I've been told that the truth will set me free. I don't feel especially liberated at the moment, I must confess. But I promised myself that I would be ruthlessly honest in my self-assessment over the course of this experiment, and being frank about bad news is part of the deal.

Labels: , ,


3 Comments:

Blogger loosemmjan said...

The truth will set you free, but if you want to make money PLO (online) is your meal ticket.

In PLO people are still making errors by calling too much and folding too much. There is money to be made by exploiting their style.

You may want to give it go.

Good luck

~loose

5/12/09 10:02 AM  
Blogger Mike G said...

Yeah online poker sucks ;)

5/12/09 3:00 PM  
Blogger Fred said...

Online poker is so much harder than live poker its ridiculous. People talk about how you can multi-table, increase your hands per hour, etc.

Play four tables simultaneously online and you're still probably facing fewer drunks, gambling addicts, tilted manics, and outright donkeys than you'll find at one good live table.

And honestly, outside micro-stakes, online rake is pretty harsh.

5/12/09 6:55 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home