You need to be logged in to your Sky Poker account above to post discussions and comments.
You might need to refresh your page afterwards.
Sky Poker forums will be temporarily unavailable from 11pm Wednesday July 25th.
Sky Poker Forums is upgrading its look! Stay tuned for the big reveal!
How to know if you're good enough...
After being "bitten" by the game in the past year i've been playing alot on other sites and then started watching sky poker, which I must say is a great channel. So I joined sky poker, as im getting more serious about poker, played for a couple of hours and just couldnt win a hand. I was really patient, but now im starting to wonder whether im cut out for poker, or if I need more time to learn the game.
Micheal. 20.
Micheal. 20.
Comments
As to if you are good enough. Really hard to judge on that having not seen you play. If you have been playing a year "seriously" then i'd like to think you have a reasonable grounding in the game, but thats not always the case if you have done nothing but play and haven't really gone out of your way to learn how to play the game well. Bare in mind a year is not loads of experience, and some people played far longer. Even the best pros will brain storm over hands, so you have to stay constantly learning from others or you will get worse, or certainly not improve while others do.
So really question is what have you done to improve your game if anything? if you say you can't win a hand at all in two hours, well thats a bit odd, but can happen, and if you've played a year on other sites you should know that bad sessions can happen.
I would suggest posting some of the hands for advice on how you played them, as that will give us more insight as to where your game is at currently and what choice you are making with hand selection preflop and how you play them post flop including your postional play. Check sticky at top of the poker clinic on how to post your hands.
"...now im starting to wonder whether im cut out for poker..."
Anyone can play poker well if they keep practicing and trying to learn. I've been playing for a little over six years and I'm a winning player these days. After one year I thought I knew how to play but I was a losing player. The difference between now and then is alot of refinement; alot of reading, alot of playing and alot of losing. It costs money to learn to play.
The trick is to identify the mistakes you're making and correct them. New players frequently fall into the same flawed thought patterns:
i) Believing they are playing well, simply because they're winning.
ii) Believing they are playing badly, simply because they're losing.
iii) Blaming other players when they get unlucky.
If you want to move from being a losing player to being a winning player, you can only achieve that by being critical of your own play. You can't avoid variance but if you make the right decisions over the long-term you will be a winning player. So seek out your own errors and eliminate them from your game one at a time and don't allow short term results to mislead you about the standard of your play. The long-term means tens of thousands of hands, at least.
Post some of your hands (both winning and losing) on the clinic.
Have a read of the forum(not the bad beats!). You'll get an idea of what level isneeded. try to concentrate on MTT's and STT's as cash is a different animal.
Get yourself a good book( maybe Harringtons vol 1) and put some effort into improving your game. Only play with money you've set aside to lose initially in order to put less pressureon yourself.
Finally, look to enjoy yourself. If you're not then why bother but its certainly worth giving it a go. it can be a terrific buzz at times.
Best of luck mate.
I'd say to know you're good enough to beat a particular level you need about 50K hands, maybe more. If you doing more than 3BB/100 after 50K hands then you are a winning player
Cheers!!