Beginner's Luck?

I am not an experienced Poker Player, but was intrigued by the game and thought I was intelligent enough to learn to play and make a bit of extra cash online. I played the play money tables for about a month, and learned that it was a bad idea to play there since they do not play real poker with fake money.

I read a few books about it (poker for dummies, followed by the little green and blue books), and decided to see how much I had learned. I deposited $50 into POker Stars and began playing. My first night went lile this:

241 hands @ .02/.05 NL Won $12
140 hands @ .05/.10 NL Won $35
310 hands @ .10/.25 NL Won $58
190 hands @ .50/1.00 NL 6player table - Won $213

Total: $318

Poker tracker said that I am Tight Passive Aggressive VP$IP 19.12
I dont really see the passive though, I usually bet on blind with a good hand.

My question is, do you all think this was beginner's luck? Should I stay back at the .05/.10 - .10/.25 tables until I get more experience, or should I play at the $1 tables since my bankroll supports it? Should I bet more on the blinds to get that passive changed to aggressive, or just play the way I thik I should and not worry about PT rates me?

Help out a beginner please....

Give $.10/.25 a few thousand hands and see how it works out

with $300 your bankroll does not support it, your bankroll does not even support .10/.25 yet!!!!

you are on a run thats it, when it stops you could and will most likely lose your whole bankroll. If this is fine by you then hell go for it but if you dont want to bust out drop down to $10 NL till you hit $500.

bankroll managment in NL

this is maximum numbers

.05/.10 = $100 - $250
.10/.25 = $250 - $500
.25/.50 = $500 - $1000
.50/1.00 = $1000- $2000
1/2 = $2000 - $4000
2/4 = $4000 - $8000
3/6 = $6000- $12,000
5/10= $10,000 - $20,000

between 2/4 and 5/10 numbers overlap.

Play another 10K hands within your BR at all times, and then come back with the results. The sample you provided does not have enough hands to actually get anything out of it.

I don't know your exact BR, since you didn't mention it, but you should never have more than 1/20 or 5% of your BR at the table. So if you're planning on playing the $25 Max tables, then you should have a BR of about $500 before doing so.

So with my $368 bankroll, I should stay at the the .05/.10 tables untill I get up to about $500. I will take that advice, and thanks for the chart. I will follow it from now on.

I take it I should ignore the PT "classification" until I have at least a few thousand hands to sample from? Should I aim for the TAA, or is the TPA player just as effective?

Any more advice for this beginner? I know I have more books to read, ordered a few praised this site on Amazon yesterday.

I never look at what pokertracker calls me, I could care less I know how I play. I dont even care what it calls my opponents I know what the numbers mean dont need it to tell me.

the chart I gave is low to high, meaning the low number is the absolute minimum you can sit with and the high is the max, of course if you are winning at a level and happy there then there is no reason to move up at all but if you want to move up you need to achieve that number.

following this chart will assure you never go bust if you are able to move up and down as chart dictates.

My first true poker experience was beginners luck, earlier this year when I won that $800 at a $1/$2 table. Still, I think I played ok, even though I never really tried anything too fancy agaisnt a bunch of pros (I'll have to get their names, because I know that sounds odd for me to say that).

No such thing as a "max" bankroll really .... and if you don't think it's possible for a good player to lose 10x the table buy in you are very very wrong. Please note too that NO bankroll is big enough for a losing player. I like to have 100x the buy in since I am a risk adverse wuss .

Scoob: as far as TPA-- this would indicate you do not raise enough preflop; i.e., you are tight (low vp$ip), passive pre, aggro post. And no, it is not as effective as TAA, or LAA.

As far as beginners luck, yes, you probably cannot sustain more than 10BB/100 (20 big blinds/100 hands) as a win rate.

Listen to what everyone said about sample size and bankroll.

if you drop down when you hit the low end of the scale then it would be very hard for a decent player to go bust. I assume if you are a cardschat player you are not a losing player. Who here can not beat .05/.10? ok here lets word it different then If you follow chart it woud be VERY HARD to go bust.

guess you missed that part of my post.

Thanks for the chart also I am going to start following that and see how that works out for me.

Well, I followed the chart, got my bankroll up to just under $1,500, became a SLAA according to PT after 4500 hands. I was doing great.

I sat at a .50/1.00 table that was awesome. had fish aftr fish coming in nonstop with one "shark" to my right. We avoided each other and prayed on the fish till we both had just over $500 at the table.

I get AA in the hole. He raises to $5... I call.
Flop comes with A-10-10. He raises $20, I call.
Turn comes with an A.... He raises $500. I couldnt believe my luck!!!!!!
I assume he's got the 10 for the FH.
I call, bringing the pot just over $1k

Then, my ISP goes down. I guess I should have read about that 1st, but, apparently if you get disconnected.. (it took about 10 min for my internet to come back up) they fold you. Is that how it works?

Nevertheless, I am now back under $1k in my bankroll, when I think I should have been over 2k.

Anyone have any thoughts of how I can prevent this from happening again?