Online poker update

Earlier in the week I updated you on my APL progress, so today seems like the right time to update on my online progress. Last year I blogged about how I was trying to turn the $5 credit I won on PokerStars in to a bankroll. I played a couple of cash/ring games but mostly I was playing micro-stake tournaments. I built the credit to over $90 which was great, but then I started just playing 45 man turbo games because the games were quicker and the payouts were better. Unfortunately the turbo format doesn't really suit my tight style of play and a run of bubbles and non top 3 finishes meant that I wasn't getting the better returns anymore. Needless to say, the run ended and the credit was soon gone.

After a while of not playing as much online and then reading about Daniel Negreanu's personal micro-stakes challenge I decided to give it another go. I deposited AU$20 on to PokerStars which at the time gave me a starting point of US$12. Rather than playing tournaments, I decided to follow Daniel's advice/challenge and stick to cash games. Being more of a tournament player it took me a little while to adjust to the differences in the games, but I guess that was why I started at 1c/2c blinds. The micro-est of micros.

Once I got my account to $25, I moved up to the 2c/5c games. Now 3 days past 2 months since I first deposited the US$12, I have grown it to US$100 ... well, $99.36 to be precise. Its now time to move up to the 5c/10c games which I could've done a while back but felt that I still had more to learn. I got the account up to $90 a few weeks ago but after some poor sessions it was under $50 again. I've now built it back up and feel better about how I'm playing and the decisions I'm making.

Some of the lessons I've learnt from the lowest of micro-level online poker levels are:

• You have to be able to fold strong hands (overpockets, straights, etc)
• Unless you have a read on someone, if you get re-raised (especially on the river) you're likely beaten unless you have the nuts or close to it
• Most people will play any suited cards, so there's usually someone chasing a flush or if there are 3 suited cards on the board, most of the time there's a flush out there
  
• The best way to make money and get paid is to hit a set ... most players find it very hard to fold top pair
• Many players don't worry about position, they're more concerned about the cards they have
• Take notes on players at your table, they come in very handy (if not that game or that day, down the track)
  

I've also been playing a few of the lower limit large field tournaments. These are usually 50c or $1 tournament buy-ins and have anywhere from 1000 to 4000 players. Roughly the top 20% of players finish "in the money" but you have to make the final table to see a really good return on your investment.

My best result so far is a 61st placed finish in a field of 2600. The buy-in was only 50c so my "winning" was an unspectacular $2.08. As well as this, I think I've finished top 100 another 2 times. I looked up my stats on one of the poker websites and in the month of March I had a very good "in the money" rate of 56%. The return on investment was still slightly negative because I didn't get deep enough to get a good payout but that's something I can work on as I continue to build the bankroll higher.

So ... bring on the 5c/10c games.