Beginners luck or natural talent?

Hey guys, I recently started playing poker (5 months ago) and have become addicted to it. I won alot of house tournaments, and a few times at the local casino. I just started playing online poker 3 days ago, and its going well. Extremely well. In fact, I turned 2$ into 106 in these three days. Does this look like begginers luck? Heres how i did it

only used to play freerolls on pokerstars and Ultimatebet till Pokerstars email me saying they gave me 2$ to play with for free.

first game: 1.10 double or nothing (theyre like sng tourneys and half the field double up.) kept doubling up till i had more than 5$, then played 5$ dble or notthing.

I won 4 in a row, then with 20$ and change started playing 10$ don on 2 tables. won both for 40$ then bought in w/ 5$ @ the .10/.25$ limits and made 25 dollars on top for a total of 65. then playd 2 20$ won both for 40$ to get to where i am now.


are these wins sustainable, coz if they are I wanna start playing 50$ don, And if I can win 2 or 3 a day Ill be makin more than my job is payin me!!!

It looks like natural talent to me. Luck is only a little part of it all. I am sure if you keep at your game you will be winning more in no time. I suggest you keep track of your winnings for a month and see how things go.

Wish you the best with your grinds. =)

First thing I can say is you are playing without any bankroll management. Although the double or nothings will give you less variance than regular sitngos I would personally allow myself a bankroll of 10x the buy in of the sitngo. eg. If you are playing $10 double or nothings, you should have at least $100 in your account.

There are times when you will be losing 5 or 6 of these in a row, no matter how good you are, especially at the higher levels. As smallteene said, keep track of your winnings for a month and see you much you go up and down.

thnks for the advie gys. not sure what bankroll mgmnt is but track my winnings would be kinda hard since Im playin alotta games. how do u guys do it if u do

First lets start with BRM (Bankroll Management)

Cash Tables/ SnGs - DO NOT buy in for more the 5% of your Bankroll

- if your bankroll is $100..you can bring no more than $5 to a table

MTTs - DO NOT buy in for more than 2% of your Bankroll

- if your bankroll is $100...you can not spend more than $2 on a tournament.

please please please please please please please please follow these strict guidelines and you SHOULD NEVER go busto EVER

the rate your going your not using any sense of BRM and all its gonna take for you is ONE bad beat and you will lose your whole entire roll by goin on tilt.

you may ask how do i know this?

I know this because I HAVE DONE IT 3 times...ive deposited 3 different times on pokerstars and each time i didn listen to BRM..even got my BR up to $400...but thought i was hot shit and the next tom dwann..ended up going broke in less than a week.

So please just stick to the $5 DoN for now...and if your BR ever gets under $100 than you better drop down ...you will thank me for this in the long read i swear..just dont keep using the method your using...variance WILL kick in and its just a matter of time until your aces run into trip kings on the river after an all in preflop and your out of $100....

Morale of the story ..PROTECT YOUR MOFO'n BANKROLL

thank you

- Brian

NO No no forget that doubling up Bingo BS.

YES Yes yes exatamundo o great guacamole.

loooooooooooool I went on a similar run playing cash games, loose and aggressive, took my first bad beat with top pair against trips and slowwwwed down... it was a real eye opener to lose half my bankroll (from 200 to 100 on TPTK...)

This is not true at all. Bankroll management is only good if you are a winning poker player. If you are not a winning player, no amount of bankroll management will help you. Rather than sticking to bankroll management rules, you have to decide how much you want to spend a month playing poker, look at it as a hobby that you enjoy rather than something which can make you go broke...

obviously you gotta win...duhh...but before you win you must stick with BRM...so it actually is true...stick to brm please as i said. thanks k bye

and with that money that he decides to play with HE SHOULD STICK TO BRM...thank you again

sorry I wasnt trying to say 'dont stick to bankroll management' as it may have seemed by the amount of text I quoted.

What I was trying to say is that just by following these bankroll management rules does not mean that you wont go broke. It means that you have a better chance to do well with the amount of money you have to start with.

yea,thats how it goes...i been playing 9months and turned 0(cashed in a ftp freeroll)into $1278 in like 4 days a week ago,but played thursday,then took a break and did well Saturday night again..
not sure what u can call it but it happens

That is definately a good run. Maybe play bigger tournaments and try to win those? Try a 5.50 or 10$ tournament with hundreds of players, win that and that's a BIG win. I cant believe you turned 2$ into that much, especially in the first few months of playing. I think it's definately skill, no one can have THAT much beginners luck and win everything they play. Wish you the best of luck, keep it up.

Thnaks alot for all the advice n everythin guys,,,, I googld BR mgmnt and theres loads of stuff written about it so i guess yea its pretty serious so ill start following that now.

This is exactly what you should NOT be doing...

Only now that he got it up to $100, he can really start to think about brm.
When he had that $2 he did the right thing, he needed to gamble that shit up.
Using brm on $10 or $20 is an exaggeration imo....

lol just now bought in to a 180 person tournament, won 1st place!!!! Im definetely gonna start takin this alot more seriously now coz this keeps gettin better n better. btw thnks thomas for tellin me to join a tourney, i woulda never joined! The final table was such a rush, kinda like drugs but better



felt soo good readin this letter:


PokerStars Tournament #208708929, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $2.00/$0.20 USD
180 players
Total Prize Pool: $360.00 USD
Tournament started 2009/11/01 12:37:53 ET


Dear KSHLUVA,

You finished the tournament in 1st place. A USD 108.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 181.41 tournament leader points in this tournament. For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/leader-board/


Congratulations!

Thank you for participating

It seems like it just came natural to you...Seems like you've became forrest gump when he started playing ping pong haha...

Stop trying to double up with your entire bankroll. Your run will not continue, and you will be back to busto. And kicking yourself. A lot of us have busted right after a good run, thinking we couldn't lose. Wrong. It's a well-trodden path. And bloody.

Yes to the BR management. It will save your butt if you are actually a good player, and will extend your playing time on your roll if you are not.

Learn patience. You will not get from $0 to $10,000 in a month. You can get back to $0 a lot more easily. Grinding is how people get a substantial roll. Beat each level, move up, beat that or move back down and try again when you rebuild. Do try some big tourneys. FT has the Daily Dollars, as well as numerous low buy-in events. PS has many also. Try the regular 9-person SNGs, and the 27 and the 45 -- at the lowest buyins. See how you do.

You will want to be finding out where your online strength is. But carefully. Nothing you do should, by itself, make an appreciable dent in your new bankroll. There will be cumulative damage or appreciation. But patience is the key.

You so CAN have that kind of luck. It's called a heater and they're pretty sweet when you're on one.

this is a pretty sick run...whats your BR at now?

I'm gonna be honest with you, your on one hell of a run, but even if your the greatest player to ever walk this earth variance is going to appear and give you a couple loses. BRM is necessary as Patty has been saying and in addition be sure to read and learn about the game. Thats awesome that you've made this much progress so quickly and you should definitely take advantage of this and build that roll up. Good Luck

It sounds like a dream to me.You got much luck.You must face some bad beats in the future.It is no matter how good you are playing you can't beat bad beats.I know that am playing correctly but I can't defeat river bad beats.I suggest you to slow down.If you are playing two tournaments for all of your money, you can easy lose both of them and all of your money will be gone.Slow down because you were extremely lucky.

bankrolls currently at 201.68 from 2$ in 4 days. btw, I already took note of pattys advice on brm which turnd out to be very good (I lost 4/11 $5 don so if it was 50$ don like I was plannin i woulda been bak at freerolls). I played the first 50 60$ recklessly coz it wanst money I deposited but after 70$ ive been takin it alot more seriosly. Now thou, im doinn 10$ don, and only go into cash games with 5 or 10 bux and the $2.20 180ppl mtt (any other good tables?). i plcd 1st n 4th in two tourneys today, but it was only 45 playrs buyin .25 n 1.1 and the prize I got was only 3.49 n 5 respectively. I guess if I start to go on a bad streak Ill be prepared for it w. brm thanks guys. I look forward to checkin out more of this forum seems like an awesome place

I think its just how they get ya

They give you two bux and then you win alot and then suddenly you lose it all back and leave you wanting to try to see if it was all luck or skill and you end up depositing haha

well let me know if thats what happens to u im curious now

This is insanely sick.

Hello,
I think gambling depends on luck some way or the other.But if you play with full knowledge, strategies and pre planned way then you an easily win gambling poker . all you need is good practice and confidence.

Yep. That's how it works.

I had a similar start to my poker "career". Finished second in a $300 live tourney. Two days later I chopped the $1000 tourney four ways. Chased that lightning for over a year until those winnings were burned up and I figured out that I was a fish and knew nothing about the game.

BD

These runs do happen. My roommate did this with $45 he won from ofc freeroll and rolled it upto nearly 500 dollars. I was observing him while he was going full bankroll buy-in and rolled it upto 500 and gave me half for me to withdraw 200 and make up the money i previously lost in the site. When i got 6th place out of 15k people in FIVE promotion 5k guaranteed 5ftp tournament, I received 120 and rolled it to 250. But advice is, you gotta draw a line to some point where you're willing to at least have. Poker has lot of variance. You haven't faced the streak where you're on a bad run. Everytime I reach 150 or 250, I withdraw 100-200 into my bank account and start over from 50. My advice if you have 200 is withdraw between 100-150 and start with 50-100. You gotta draw a line to the point where you're willing to keep if worst comes to worst.

All good advice here. I just think you should take a look at Chris Fergouson's Bankroll Mngmnt that he practiced religously to turn 0 into $10,000.

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/pro-tip/ChrisFerguson/100

When I first started playing poker online it wasnt uncommon for me to deposit 50 dollars and grow it to about 600-700 within 4-6 days. In fact it happened pretty much every time I ever deposited. But eventually I would always go bust. I didn't go bust because I wasn't good at playing poker, It was because I wasn't good at managing my Bankroll.

Bankroll management is key if you want to maintain a BR. Sure, you can easily grow your bankroll wildly by buying in to a ring game with 50 or even 100 percent of your BR and doubling up, but when your aces start loosing to j's and your j's start loosing to 56 suited, you'll soon realise that 1 or 2 buyins just doesn't cut it. Realisticly you need at least 10-15 - Personally I prefer 20-25.

I now practise strict br mangment and still enjoy the same wins. The only difference is im also able to cope with whatever variance comes my way because I always have at least 20 buy ins to what ever limits im playing. I recommend you do the same because variance will hit you sooner or later.

since u have $100, i would advice you to start playing with only $5 DoN this gives u 20 buy in.. with 60% win rate, you r bound to be in profit. if you win 80/100, den consider move up to another level...

I would say, don't get me wrong I don't know, but imo Inter1 sounds a little too lucky! I don't think it would be possible to make that much how they did it. There is no one that has played HE that hasn't lost from time to time Unless this person does nothingg but play poker, the time restraint of doing this in 3 days is unpheaseble. If they are winning like that they should be up to 1000 in 3 more days. Eventually someone will get suspicious!