I was talking with a friend yesterday – one that doesn’t play poker – and I found myself having to defend my losing some 50 tournaments since my last big win. I had to explain my 156% ROI, and lecture on how the long term is what’s important. You see – I won $25,000 playing online poker last year, by playing mostly $10-$30 tournaments, and I made some big mistakes. I had read one book – “The Book of Bluffs” by Daniel Negreanu, and I thought my bluffing was already good enough to win $25,000 – maybe even more.

Here is what I did wrong:

1. I played too many nights poker – I think you can generalize this to any level of play. Professional players play poker online poker all night, and play live games once or twice a month. I wasn’t fully focused in any of those games.
2. I played tournaments instead of sit and go’s – again, probably a generalization but I had a max buy-in in most of the tournaments, and sit and go’s just seemed to be a buildup to the next tournament. In the last week of October, I played 6 tournaments. I made some big mistakes in those 6 tournaments, and failed to make the money in 3 of them. I also made the final table in 4 of those, and nothing else really made sense.
3. I played tournaments my first money tournament – I highly believe in you being able to adjust differently run a poker tournament and a ring game. In a poker tournament, you can play tight and play aggressively – and the later you start the more genuine it can really be. You can afford to lose the first 20 hands or so because everything counts for tournament play. When you win the first few tournaments, however, you are likely to want to play tight again, because you win and you want to win. You cannot win if you are playing loose, so the first set of 20 hands is very important. Remember that you won’t have a chance to get hot during the first set of hands, so you have to immensely reduce your pre-flop raising.
4. When you are beating a keno team, call their bluff. I know, I know, you know better than this – but sometimes it happens and you get “caught in the trap”. Hey, you already went into the casino with $1,000, you can afford to lose $1,000. Sometimes the authors of these articles get caught up in their own writing and make favours which end up costing them.
5. Casino’s can’t afford to draw player’s chips away from the keno floor – the casino needs your poker dollars!

All of these ideas can be applied to Online KartuPoker as well. Play TIGHT-AGGRESSIVE poker online. Raise your hands when you have the goods. Fold until you get “Pennsylvania Quaker Ovens”, but have enough “Don’t Probabty” money in your bankroll to survive the rest of the hand. Make the mistake of playing beyond your bankroll rather than within it, and you may end up losing everything.

Online Poker can be fun and profitable – but you have to know what you are doing – and most of all, have fun!