Well, tonight was the night. After squaring away some work I brought home, I started up True Poker to take my chances at my new 1$/2$ limit.
First thing I noticed is that True Poker really doesn’t believe in anything smaller than a 1$ chip, as both the big and small blinds were a dollar. So, instead of 1.50$ an orbit, it’s 2$. That just goes to make the deposit bonus (of which 10$ is unlocked for everyone 100 raked hands) even less of a value. No matter. I’m not a fish. I am a poker player. I’ve read my Sklansky. I’ve ground my way up through the lower limits. This game will be no sweat for one such as I!
Fifty dollars later, my confidence isn’t quite so high. There was some bad play in there, but a lot of it was cold cards. I was playing my premium cards hard, but never got paid off. KK turns into a set on the flop, but the flush possibility hits on the turn, and the river brings a fourth club on board. Otis from Up For Poker. You can go read his post about how he has parlayed his 196$ tourney win from the WBT II into a very comfortable bankroll at True Poker. He looked to be doing reasonably well, but I couldn’t catch a break and eventually dropped the entire 50$ in chips that I’d brought to the table.
Oddly enough, I wasn’t too bothered by it and after sitting two hands, I bought in for another 40$. I knew I was playing reasonably well, and there was definitely money to be made at the table. In fact, most of my losses were from being staying in hands far too long. Over the next few orbits I managed to drop another 10$. Then Otis and the other big stack left the table and my luck started to turn.
My hands were starting to hold up and I was able to work my stack up to 59$ before the table broke up. But I was feeling in the groove so I quickly hopped onto another nearly full table. My solid play continued to pay off, and I managed to make some good reads on some rather scary boards to drag some pots I would have run away from at the last table. By the end of my 3.5 hour session, I’d brought my stack up to a respectable 89$. Still -0.5BB on the evening, but I view it as a big win after a bad run of cards. And with the first 10$ of my bonus added to my account, I’m actually up 9$ on the night and I’m a quarter of the way towards unlocking the next 10$.
In the end, I was pretty happy with my first night at 1/2. It felt a bit more serious than it probably should have, as I’m still playing for pretty low stakes, but I think that was in part due to the atmosphere created by True’s interface. It also could have been because was watching Rounders while playing.
Sounds like a good session tp. Once you got comfortable and started playing your game, you cleaned up. I hope next session you don’t have to lose your buy in before you start playin your a game!