First thing I did was take advantage of the Full Tilt deposit bonus. I ran real good at the beginning playing 25NL but it quickly unraveled and I went on the worst run I have ever seen. Yes I take full blame for having gaping holes in my game, but it was also just a terrible run of luck. Looking back I realize my good run was really just good luck overcoming my holes and then it caught up to me.
I quickly watched as my bankroll dropped buy-in after buy-in. Eventually I sucked it up and dropped down as low as you can go to the 10$NL tables deciding I needed to rework my game from the ground up.
The very next thing I did was join CardRunners.com. It’s basically an online website/poker school and I dove in and absorbed as much as I could. I knew I was on the right track when my wife started getting annoyed. So I watched as many low level videos as I could. I really haven’t watched the higher levels yet, as I didn’t want to be tempted to try to do tricky plays and thing that might work at those levels.
I started to play and grind away on Full Tilt at their 10NL tables. I would go up then down then up then down. You get the idea. I was playing a Tight-Aggressive (TAG) style of around 18/14 trying to squeeze out any leaks in my game. It just seemed to me that whenever I had a hand, it got folded around to me and my 3xBB raise.
Yet everytime I put out my standard continuation bet – I would have people calling and coming over the top. It wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t really making any money. In fact the only reason I stayed afloat was the deposit bonus was basically cushioning me from the rake.
Frustrated I decided to give PokerStars.com a try. It doesn’t have a real deposit bonus (50$ max right now so nothing special) or rakeback, so I didn’t sign up with them before for these reasons. But let me tell you I have been walking away from tables consistently doubling or tripling up my buy-ins. The play here is so Tight-Passive it’s not even funny.
A lot of my big hands get paid off but I bet you most of my money is made by taking down pots on the flop with a rightly timed c-bet. In about 3k hands I have run the $100 tester deposit up to about $300. I played 2k hands at 10$ and was up 10 buy-ins so I decided to take a shot at 25NL and see if the play was just as soft. Well I haven’t looked back and indeed it is thus far. I am going at a clip of about 36bb/100 right now making about 20$ an hour (as per PokerTracker).
I know it’s a very small sample size but it’s not like I am winning because my flush is hitting or I am being dealt great cards. I am literally winning via aggression. Also because these tables are soo passive, that it’s much easier to lay down a hand if someone plays back at you. Something I had a hard time with at Full Tilt Poker.
And to think I don’t even have a PokerTracker database on the players at PokerStars yet. That will only help me that much more avoid bad situations and extract as much value out of my hands.
My advice to those that are grinding away on a site: take a break and try a new one, you never know what’s going on over there. And you might be pleasantly suprised.