Cake Update - Marsh

Results through October

Edit again: Edit: Total: 190.52

Then end of another month of hardcore Cake action. After some ups and downs I am pretty well grooved in now. I have been trying to play a lot, and wish I were playing even more. I am single minded in my goal at this point: get to 200.00 so I can play .05-.10. At 10.00 per max buy in, I feel like things will get going pretty well once I get used to those stakes. Which makes me think of some stuff..

Even though I have played well above those levels online before, I feel now like I never quite was comfortable with it. I didn't really get it. I am feeling like I know these basement stakes pretty well now, and I know what to do to win the most money. I know some of the players on Cake, and I also know the "moves" that become commonplace at any given level. (like the min-bet, min-bet, hammer-the-river move). I also feel very much that I belong there, and that I can go back and build up my roll again if I have to. It's a good feeling.

I really feel that this is the best way to master online poker. Start very low, and really put in some time to figure out what people are doing and how, as a group, they approach poker at these stakes. It is really easy to say, "It's just a donkfest at those levels, you just have to have a good hand to win." It's not that simple. Sure, if you hit a big hand, you have a much higher chance of getting paid off at these levels than at higher levels. But dealing with players who go all in with 10c5c on a A high, two club board when you have AA, then subsequently cracking your top set wide open, and finally telling you in chat that you got "pwned" takes practice and discipline. And this discipline is very helpful down the road. Building this base is important, and it's hard. But these are the tools that will help prevent blowups and bad play at the higher levels when there is actual money on the line. This is what the pros mean when they say they "put in their time".

I am not saying you couldn't just come it at .25-.50 and do this. You could. But many of the players at that level either played at the levels I am at now, or should have. What I mean is, if they ground up some sort of roll at .02-.04, then I have an insight into where they came from, and that gives me a big edge on them later. If they just jumped up levels then they missed on valuable learning time (like tilt control or maintained A game play) and I can take advantage of them at higher stakes where the money counts.

I do have some leaks that I need to handle. I haven't figured out how to do it yet though. When I multi, I find that one table is often way lower than the others. I feel like I am playing the same at all of them, and it might just be variance, but if I am letting beats affect me at one table and not others, I need to fix that. I also feel like I have been running pretty well overall, and I bet that will slow down and I need to be prepared to weather the storm when it hits.