Holding On To Your Profit
Most people only think of poker success in terms of how much
they've won or lost. Another way to judge success is by how much of
your profit you've managed to keep. I've often seen players build up
a great bankroll and then advance to a higher level only to lose any
profit they made.
A great example of this is when my friend and I set a goal to make
$100,000 each by the end of the summer. We might have actually done
it had we followed our original plan to attack the $3/$6 tables
mercilessly, making half of our roll there before moving up to the
$5/$10 games and then to the $10/$20 games to finish our run after
reaching $75,000. Instead, we decided it would probably be faster to
jump directly to the $10/$20 games and just own them. We thought
wrong - I went bust, and the next day, he did too.
When you make a drastic jump like that and are playing above your
limits, that's when poker turns into gambling. You won't have the
bankroll to outlast the bad hands and losing streaks and you won't
live to see the good hands come around. It becomes about luck and
hoping you get that one good hand that'll win big before you run out
of money, and it's almost impossible to be successful when playing
poker this way.
You take the gamble out of poker and increase your chances of
holding onto your profit when you play at the levels you're most
comfortable with. This means playing at a level your bankroll can
handle and removing some of the luck factor from the game. Doing
this will also help you relax and thus play your best game because
you won't be worried about whether the next hand will make or break
you.
Eventually you can look at moving up to the next level. The best
strategy is to play at your current level until you've been
dominating it for months and have built up a good bankroll, and then
step up to the next level. Keep in mind that while the returns are
higher at the next level, the competition is also quite a bit
better. You have to be sure your bankroll is big enough to handle
the move so you can be totally focused on the quality of your game
and not the money.
If you're not patient enough to do that, there's only one way to
jump to a higher limit and possibly beat it. You have to hit-and-run
the table. Basically you'll take a $500 shot at $5/$10, and when you
double up, immediately get off the table no matter how good it is.
The problem most people have, myself included, is that once they've
made a little money they refuse to leave the table. I've done this
many times and almost always go on to lose any money I made. If you
lose your buy-in, you must step down a limit and play where you
usually play.
I've seen too many people lose it all by taking a huge shot at the
big time. I want you to understand that playing winning poker will
turn in to gambling every time you step up a limit without the
necessary bankroll. Take my advice to heart and continue playing a
solid poker game at a comfortable level. You won't regret it.
|
