Crawling

You've Got To Go Through Hell Before You Get To Heaven - Steve Miller
 
 
   So, as you all know, I've been grinding away at 50/1, trying to get to a logical bankroll such that I can move upwards comfortably.  Most of you also know that I play 98% of my poker on Party Poker.
 
   This is a blessing and a curse.  The blessing obviously, is the sheer magnitude of people who are apparently trying to lose money as fast as humanly possible.  The curse is, the players are so absolutely bad you have no idea what you're up against.  Nothing sucks quite as much as getting that surprise raise from your calling station opponent when a seemingly harmless card falls on the river.
 
    Another interesting thing.  I have played over 20,000 hands of 50/1 limit poker.  Thanks to PokerTracker I have notes on every player I've sat down with for more then 10 hands; and estimated 6,500 players, give or take a few hundred.  I am lucky if I see 3 people with notes when I sit down.  The player turnover is huge.  People either move up or bust out.  I guess if I'd have been a little more disciplined and not withdrawn a couple of hundred out of my account from time to time, I'd be out of the 50/1 Hell I'm currently in, but alas, there I sit.  I've got some money left from my stint in casino bonus whoring, but I wasn't nearly as successful at that as others are, and my brush with busting out at Captain Cook's has sort of curbed my enthusiasm on that little operation.  As it is, though, I did manage to come away with 400% return on my investment, so I should't bitch too much.  Of course, for some reason none of that cash has found its way back into my poker account.  I'll have to rectify that tomorrow sometime.
 
So, anyway, to the point.  Given my vast 50/1 online experience, I've discovered a couple of things;
 
- Dump or Pump.  If you're beat, you're beat.  You're not going to win the pot by betting and hoping for a fold.  On the other hand, these cretins will call you with anything and, often times, nothing at all.  Build that pot up!
 
- Shut off chat.  I have yet to see anything useful pop up in the chat window.  Tilting these guys has little value since they're too stupid to know they're getting their asses kicked.
 
- Playing multiple tables keeps me from getting "creative".  If I get bored, I'll start trying to play hands that require finesse and skill to make work.  It's like singing to deaf people.
 
More nuggets of amazing poker knowlege in future posts.  What the heck, I'm small potatoes in the blogging community anyway.  A rest stop on the highway to such hotspots as Cards Speak or The Blogather.
 
I won't really feel like a player until I get on Wil Wheaton's regular reading rotation.  I imagine that would require quality content though, which this site is decidedly devoid of, so I'm pretty much screwed...