The Six Winged Dragon

Strange title for a poker article i hear you say, well, every aspiring poker player and even the pros will tell you that at times they may as well be trying to slay dragons at the poker table, myself included. So why six wings?, a bit strange having a six winged dragon right? but, each wing represents a piece of the jigsaw every poker player needs to control and, master to become a consistent winning player. i will share with you my story thus far and how i overcame, with the help of my coach from RFC, Al, these six problems which plague players the world alike. Remember, the dragon is just a metaphor, but, what it represents is never the less real, and for those that wish to bank profits instead of funding there game, read on. 

When i first came to RFC, i came with many problems, i have lost more money than i care to remember, including a bad beat which cost me over 7.5k. This was back in 2005 but the pain of that day will always be there. Over the last year i have pretty much done the same thing month in month out, I start with $200 and play the low limits until i am up to $400 or so and then straight to the big games, usually $5-$10 NL Omaha Hi/ Low. A few sessions later and I'm sitting on a bank roll of anything from 2k to 5k, the most i have ever made in one month was $7362. Sounds great right? Wrong, every time i have ever made money i have always lost it playing even higher limits. Why would i be that stupid? why would i play great poker and make large sums
of money only to give it all back and start again with nothing?.
 
And so begins our treasure hunt for the six pieces.........
 
Discipline, belief, attitude, controlling tilt, time management and bankroll management. Suffice to say i was lacking in all, one thing i can say with certainty is that i excelled in breaking all the rules. There came a point when i just had to face reality, keep losing, or find a way to start winning. Joining RFC was the best poker decision i have made since i started playing some 5 years ago. I figured there must be one person or member who could help me work out these problems and get me on track with my sessions. Well that person was Al. From the first email he has been a friend and a guide. First we had to deal with the money issue, the idea is to build a bankroll, not fund it, so we started there. Its very important to have a limit and stick to it. I decided on a weekly limit of $100. No more, that's it, if i lose my roll during my weekly sessions then i have to wait till deposit day to play again. This alone is a big incentive to play solid poker as the last thing i want to be doing is waiting a week to play again. Remember, discipline, once you have your limit stick to it, under no circumstances should you deposit before your set day. Our next hurdle was game limits and making sure i stuck to them. This was going to be very hard for me, playing lower limits can sometimes be very boring, and having played at limits up to $30-$60, this was the hardest part for me to overcome. I decided from the start to at least try for 6 months without deviating, i had nothing to lose and everything to gain by sticking to the plan we were forming. 
 
I started playing 10c-25c tables, and within the first 5 days of play i was at $395. I did hit $405 at one point and went as low as $67, but, i was determined to stick it out. And now we come to tilt, we all know what it means and what it can do, and, on the 6Th day of play i suffered a beat which could have potentially destroyed everything i had achieved so far. i tilted off over $200 of my bank roll and literally had to slap myself in the face to stop playing. i was staring at my bank roll which was now at $187, do i really want to lose this as well i said to my self. Absolutely not, for 20 minutes i did whatever i could to calm myself down, meditation, yoga you name it i did it. Now its very important at this point to really stop and be honest with yourself, 9 times out of 10 most players will try to convince themselves that they are not playing that bad and just running bad, when, in actuality there tilting there roll away. You must learn to recognise the difference between bad luck and tilted play. If you cant then you will more often that not lose your roll and have to start again. I took a big deep breath and decided to start again.
 
I would also like to point out that many players can play great poker but the minute they start tilting everything goes out the window. So in reality, if every player could remove emotion out of there play and recognise they will run bad sometimes, they will do much better. I started on one table and very slowly worked my way up to 8 tables, 4 Omaha hi low and 4 NL hold em tables. I was very determined to play the best poker i could and in doing so i ran my bank roll over the $500 mark to $522. Luck? maybe, but, had i continued playing whilst i was angry and tilting i most certainly would have lost it all, having stopped though for 20 minutes made all the difference. 
 
I have since made my first cash out of $400 leaving myself with $120 for the next week and as i have a starting roll for my week i didn't need to deposit any more and added my $100 weekly limit to my cash out amount. So i have for the first time in my poker playing career $500 sat in my bank account.
 
There are 2 things i would like to mention before i finish this article. Firstly, you must have belief in yourself, if you don't believe you can win then you cant. Before you sit down to play take 5 minutes and really think about your play and what you want to achieve. Tell yourself you can do it and then start playing. And lastly set yourself time limits, i will not play more than 2hrs a session, this allows me to stay focused and even if i am losing i will still stop playing. Remember, the longer you play the bigger the risk of losing more in a bad session. 

Until next time 
 
Keep slaying!!!
 
Andreas