First win!

Did I say at the previous post that I wouldn't play again anytime soon? Well, erase that. As I was studying yesterday, my coach/boyfriend told me that I should play one sit'n'go by the end of the day. Not wanting to feel as helpless as last time, I organized my notes in a better way and I opened a 9-players table. This time I didn't play two at the same time, it's too soon for multitabling I think (LOL, some people play 20 tables at a time and I'm calling multitabling playing only two! : P)

Anyway, during the early game I didn't get many good hands so I spent my time watching how my opponents were playing. And then the blinds got too big, so I started playing all in/fold poker. It worked out fine, I stole the blinds a lot of times and I won the times I got called. Then before you know it, 5 players were left. When the ones with the shorter stack went all in and my hand was decent I called, and eliminated them one after the other! So when the bubble burst, not only I was in the money, but I was also the chipleader. At heads up I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, cause that's a part of the game I haven't read that much about, but I used a principle that Collin Moshman mentions in his book "The aggressive player takes the cash". So I played agressive (at least what I consider to be agressive with my current knowledge of poker), and I won!

Ok, I'm not saying that I know how to play poker now that I won a tournament, I obviously don't. And I'm sure I made tons of mistakes while playing. But it felt nice to win, and I did feel a bit better about my plays at the early game than what I was feeling the first time I played.

As far as studying goes, I finished the first part of Moshman's book about the Low-Blind Play, and then I reread it taking notes of whatever I thought was important. Today I will move on to the second part, Mid-Blind Play. I will also play another sit'n'go. My latest instructions say I should play one per day and study the rest of the time.

That's all for now!

Intro

Wow, writing the first post of a blog is harder than I thought. I've been staring at the screen for some minutes now, not knowing how to start. I guess I should explain a few things about myself and what this blog is about.

My name is Katerina and I'm greek. I'm 25 years old and I recently moved to Portugal. As from next week I'll be attending classes at university, but apart from that... let's just say I have a lot of free time on my hands. My boyfriend is a professional poker player, as in he plays poker for a living, and he offered to teach me how to play the game.

Even though I have watched him play online a lot of times and I have gone to a couple of live tournaments with him, I don't really know how to play poker. Until last week if someone asked me questions like "Is a flush better than a full house?" I would not be 100% sure about the answer. Apart from that, maths is not really my thing. My studies were in litterature and languages so whenever someone talks about percentages, chances, and numbers in general I'm completely out of my comfort zone.

I don't know if I have what it takes to become a profitable player, build a bankroll and move up in stakes. But I am willing to give it a try.

I will be playing Texas Hold'em sit'n'gos. The reason why I'm creating this blog is to help me stay on track and monitor my progress (if there is any, lol!). I started last week by reading Phil Shaw's "Secrets of Sit'n'gos". The book was nice, I think it's easy to read for new players. That said, there is so much information in it that there is no way a person would absorb it all just by reading it once. I started doing the quizes at the end of the book, but soon I was missing a lot of the right answers so my coach/boyfriend decided that it would be better for me to study a bit more and save the quizes for later.

I also spent a couple of hours with him, where he explained how I should play and answered my questions. At the end of my first week of studying, he suggested that I play two tables simultaneously and try to apply what I learnt so far. I played two $1 standard speed 9-player tables. Huge disaster! The entire time I was struggling with paying attention to both tables, calculating how many big blinds me or my opponents had, and going through Phil Shaw's book and my notes. Even though I lost on the bubble on one table and made it in the money (3rd place) on the other, when the games were over I was left frustrated and with a feeling that I am completely clueless. At least I know where I stand and can work towards improving. I will go back to studying and will definately not play again without being a bit more prepared. This week I'm studying "Sit'n Go Strategy" by Collin Moshman. Let's see how that goes.

If you are a beginner like me or if you are just interested in following the progress of a new player, then follow my blog! Any advice or comments are welcome!