So, let us start with my question:

"After being a winning poker player for a couple of years in a previous life, why do I suddenly find myself being a loser in 2 out of 3 months and making a bad start in my 4th?"

It is an honest question which, quite obviously, needs answering.

For most people in this situation there are only 2 options. First option is to tell yourself, friends, family, the whole world that you are actually winning. It is amazing what people can make themselves believe if they really want to, I have no doubt that many of the people reading this blog have seen numerous people do this. The alternative is to recognise that something needs correcting and do a self evaluation to find the problem.

So what is different?

The style of poker I learned was built in high action games where if you only get 20 hands in an hour and try to play tight, you can't possibly win money. Sure you might get lucky with some cold decks, but these even out eventually, and if you rock up people just refuse to pay you off. Live cash poker, if played professionally, requires you to be willing to give and get action. Playing mixed games of omaha/holdem and stud (normally pot limit) provided good variation for the imagination to feed on, and I need little encouragement in that department!

Now though, playing online seriously for the first time, the game is different. It is not an easy process to learn what is effectively a new game when you feel that you have played it before. As discussed in my previous blog post though, it is only the mechanics which are the same. The basic process of being dealt cards and following rounds of betting, showdowns decided by hand ranking, is really all that is common to the different games of live cash and online cash poker.

The poker which I learned had a lot to do with action, feeling the game, feeling your opponent, playing the board which is shown to generate pressure and make money by provoking mistakes, the cards themselves were quite often irelevent to the play which took place! When you playing 20 hands an hour this is a necessity, it became a process of backing your ability to read the game to generate profit.

The poker which I am now playing is one of statistics and hand turnover. The mechanics are the same, the game is not. Suddenly, I have come to realise, action is not a requirement to make money! With this number of hands per hour per table it becomes a game of extracting value on the quality hands, rather than extracting value on marginal hands. The big problem, is that the people I have been playing these months knew that already! I don't think I have ever ever played in such tight games before! However because there were so many hands coming per hour it felt as if there was action when in fact there was very little to none.

So, to summarise, I was creating a situation where I was giving too much action to players only playing quality hands, in short my entire game was -EV for online poker.

The solution? Well, I have reasoned a solution which should work. But before I share it I want to test it for several more days ;) Just because day 1 has gone quite well under a new regime I don't want to look silly if it all goes Pete Tong tomorrow! Watch this space for an update soon!