Live low and mid stakes

What is the experiment?

I have been playing live poker for many years, likely longer than the average age of a DC member. There have been a couple of times in my life where I had to rely on poker to support myself, but for the most part I have been a hobbyist player albeit serious about my play.

I live in Phoenix Arizona which has a large and active poker community with (4) tribal ran casino’s spreading poker games and a half a dozen or so social gaming clubs spreading poker games. We have had a $150 betting limited on casino poker games for many years now. That has recently changed to a $500 bet cap on any action. We now have at least one casino spreading $500 max bet spread limit games, ranging from 1/2 blinds to 10/20 blinds. It is just a matter of time before the other casinos start spreading similar games.

The lower blind games play essentially as a NL game. E.g. 1/2 blinds with a $100 min and $200 max buy-in. As the blind level increases the less the game resembles a NL game.

Over the years I have seen a lot of talented players step into the live realm and burn brightly and then disappear from the community. I suspect that the majority of these talented players went bust do to leaks and very poor bankroll management.

So as an experiment I decided to challenge myself in an effort to learn and document the mistakes of a newbie live players. There is some prop betting involved, but I prefer to keep that element private, but mention it only as it has some rules that apply to this experiment.

The conditions of the experiment:

• Start with $300. I chose this amount, as many casual players are simply pulling a couple of hundred out of their pocket and sitting in a game. They run well for a couple of sessions building a little bit of a roll then think they know it all.

• Play each level of the currently spread games, until I have built up at least (20) buy-ins for the next level. If I drop below (20) buy-ins for any level I have to drop down. This will be calculated on a weekly basis unless extreme losses are incurred.

The experiment started on April 15th. I will be playing several short sessions a week.

In future posts I will document my progress with the experiment and make observations on the players and issues I find. The goal is to show how to enter live play with a woefully inadequate bankroll and how to turn from a live donkey into a solid winning player.