OK Sarj, here's the situation:
Right now, you, Sarj, are currently losing money. No amount of play is going to change that. You aren't losing because you don't have enough time or because you aren't playing enough. You are losing because you currently are playing a flawed strategy.
Your current ability on
sharkscope is 50. That is not where you need to be to be a winning poker player.
Your average stake is 1.26 GBP and your ROI is -50% meaning... if you spend $100 in tourney fees this month, you're going to lose about $50 after all is said and done.
Now don't get me wrong, you have potential. On top of the 12 wins in the past quarter, you've final tabled 7 times. Not terrible over 200 games. But not good enough.
Since your high stakes loss (what were you playing that game for?!), you've been playing a bit better, a bit tighter perhaps, but still a losing overall strategy, I'm afraid.
So you want to make $25/month. It's doable. But not without time and effort.
Number 1: Take the free 30 day cards chat poker course. If you don't have time for that, quit poker.
Number 2: Stop playing those weak
hands.
Number 3: Stop playing those weak hands you think are good from early position.
Number 4: Stop the fancy play.
Number 5: Stop
bluffing until you can tell the difference between a bet and a
bluff.
Number 6: Identify which game is your forte. For some, its the long deep MTTs, for others it might be 8-Max, 6-Maz, SpinNGo, etc. For example. I'm still managing to play longer games without losing my focus. 45-seat SNG? No problem. I can crush those (from $0.50 to $1.50)... But some of the longer, multi-day tourney's I struggle.
Number 7: Beware of Spin N Go's. For new poker players, Spins (and to a certain extent cash Zooms) are like crack. They're fast and furious and generate excitement and encourage
gambling. Clearly, you're here to win, not to gamble.
To your credit, you are a top 25% player in the SNGs...but you still need to get that moving towards top 10% (but don't dwell on this stat as it is only indicative).
8. Based on the small margins you do win, you will find you are going to need to play a fair number of games per day to meet your financial objective.
9. Make sure you have the
bankroll to support the pursuit. And this clearly means your play on March 23rd should have been out of bounds for you. That game as waaaaay outside your bankroll.
10. Stop committing all your chips so early in your games. From your stats, I can see that most of the time, you exit a tournament early. Your ration of late to early finishes is vanishingly small...which makes it rather difficult to cash. Based on your early exits, you are either playing far too many hands, getting involved in too many multiway pots (and losing) or putting far too many chips into the pot, given your range vs your opponents' ranges. So just bloody stop it. Being a good poker player is not risking all your cash on mediocre holdings.
11. Stop playing the same way in every game. A short-stacked hyper turbo freeroll cannot be played in the same way a Deep-stacked Normal tourney. The former has no real risk, but potential reward. As a result, people play in freerolls like they don't care. QQ might be shovable from early position in a tight game, but when it risks multiple calls regardless of hand strength, there is a pretty decent chance that after four callers somebody is going to hit AA, KK, 2-pair, a straight or a flush. Heads up, no problem. Under the gun... not so much.
12. You didn't understand when they emphasised position, position, position.
You think you did...but probably not. If you were to get yourself a HUD, you can actually, over time, identify what hands are profitable from which position.
I can tell you, from my stats, it doesn't really matter what my hole cards are. If I play from UTG, UTG+1, UTG+2, I'm more likely to lose, even with a strong starting hand. The idea of what you THINK is strong is very different depending on where you are sitting. I know plenty of people who would fold AJo from UTG...whereas there are others who routinely shove AJo from UTG. What do I think? It depends. But its risky.
13. Until you have very good reads on your opponents, do not slow play. You find yourself with AA, KK? DO NOT SLOW PLAY. Raise, divide and conquer. Limped in with small pocket pair and hit a set? DO NOT SLOW PLAY. There are exceptions and it does depend on position and pre-flop action. But generally, the rule should be: get your money in whilst you have the best hand...
14. Fold more. Yes, this comment is the same as you're playing too many hands, but nobody listens the first time. Fold more.
15. Stop calling. No, this isn't the same thing again. If you approach the hand as "either bet or fold", you will quickly see that a significant number of hands you used to call with, you cannot bring yourself to bet with. These are the hands you should stop playing for now (ie until your decision to play is based on opponents' play, and not simply your hole cards).
So the idea here is to up your game by ensuring you are playing a stronger range, as well as ensuring you are adding aggression to the game. If you are not confident enough in your hand to win at showdown, why call? (this is overly simplistic, but for a beginner, it is good enough).
What you will find is that you will hardly play any hands, but your success will be remarkably better.
This leads us to the next bit...
16. Start multi tabling. What you are going to find, is that once you tighten up your range and play positionally, you're hardly going to be involved in any pots. So then you will get bored. Then you will play a marginal hand because you've folded the last 20 in a row and "everyone thinks I'm a nit now" and the you play your rubbish cards, hit one of them and now are playing with a top pair poor kicker for waaay too many chips by the time the river has hit.
So, playing an extra game or two or three (or more once you get comfortable) will help to combat the "playing out of boredom" activity. The problem with multitabling is that it is more difficult to use player intel player behaviour as an indicator because your attention is now split across tables and you are no longer watching how people play when you're not in the hand.
17. Get a HUD.
Even if the only stat you use from your HUD is VPIP, you will put yourself in a much better position. This
tells you how often a player puts their money into the pot voluntarily. Fish have high VPIPs, Nits have low VPIPs, TAGs around 20 and LAGs over 25 (for example. some would disagree with where I draw the lines. It doesn't matter as long as they get drawn.)
This will encourage you to fold pre-flop where someone has a very low VPIP or may encourage you to call/raise and see the flop if hey have a high VPIP.
PFR, CB, FCB, also very useful stats. If csomeone has a stat of FCB 100, you can expect me to be cBetting into those folks. But if it is zero, I won't CBet unless I have hit.
18. find a buddy. Playing poker can be lonely, but that's not why you should have a poker buddy. Your poker buddy's job is to play better than you and to keep you honest and be critical of you when your discipline wanders. I chat with my poker buddies all the time over discord. And we observe each other when playing. (Note: no cheating. Do not discuss any hand in progress.)...BUT do discuss the hand afterwards to figure out what you did right or wrong. Plus, it really does take away some of the loneliness of poker.
...
I could go on. The list of things to do, change, improve, avoid is long and ever growing in poker. But first and foremost, you need to have sufficient discipline to go alongside your winning strategy.
Good luck!
ObbleeXY
