Poker

As an undergrad at UC Santa Barbara, I played in some small poker games with friends. We played mostly 7-stud and some of its many variations. At the time, I didn't take the game very seriously, so I played horribly. But as time moved along, I slowly understood that poker is really a highly complex game of skill, and I began to really become a student of the game.
And when I say "student of the game", I truly mean a "student". I'm pretty sure I can 4-table at Party Poker's notoriously easy games and quickly work my way up to playing $3-6 and making $25-30 an hour. But I'm not interested in learning to beat the soft games for the sake of profit. I want to develop the ability to play well in tough games at higher stakes. My goal is to eventually be comfortable sitting down at a $300-600 game at the Bellagio on a weekend Vegas trip. But that's a long way off.
I'm proud to say that I got interested in the game before the poker explosion of recent years. I can trace my online poker play back to September 23, 2001 and I went to Chumash Casino (Indian gaming in Santa Ynez) to play cards as early as my freshman year (I lost $20 in about 10 minutes because I didn't really know what I was doing). And for those of you keeping track, Chumash is an 18+ establishment, not a 21+ establishment, so I wasn't illegally gambling (though I know some who did).
This page is much more for my own amusement than for anyone else's benefit. But if you find it interesting or useful, that's good.

$0.50/$1.00 Hold'em at Paradise Poker



I found a nice program that makes professional-looking graphs instead of just using a spreadsheet. This graph shows how I did from September 23, 2001 through September 17, 2004. This includes the time when I was playing somewhat casually, which is why it took so long for me to reach 10,000 hands (which is a good measure to see if you are a winning player, but not a good measure if you're trying to find out how good you are). Since I reached my $300 goal, I moved up to the next game.

$1/$2 Hold'em at Paradise Poker



The $1/$2 game caused a major shift in how I viewed the game. I became much more aggressive and much better at picking up reads (based on how players play their hands). I went from playing only about 16% of my hands to playing 20%. That may not seem like much, but it's a 25% increase which made the game more interesting. I'm very glad I made the adjustment. The dates of this graph range from September 20, 2004 to June 23, 2005. I didn't have a set monetary goal for moving up. It was a matter of feeling very comfortable with my game and looking for something new.

$1/$2 Hold'em 5-max at Paradise Poker



It took another 7 months, but I've reached a satisfactory level of success at the shorthanded game. These last 10,000 hands have been very educational. Learning how to confront a more aggressive opponent and to take full advantage of position are two important skills that I've picked up here. The dates on this graph run from June 26, 2005 to January 23, 2006. Notice that I ran really hot for the first 1500 hands or so and have run fairly flat since then. Such are the swings of the game. The shift back to full ring ought to be quite interesting.

$.50/$1 Hold'em at Party Poker



I've started down the path of a multi-tabling bonus whore. These hands came from 4-tabling to clear various Party bonuses. So aside from the $300 I've earned playing here, there's another $425 in free money that has gone into the bankroll (dating from 12/9/05 to 6/14/06). I'm not too sure if I want to keep doing this, because 4-tabling is a little less interesting than a good 1-tabling, although it is faster paced and more "exciting" in the sense of playing more hands.

I've changed things up a bit. Check out my poker blog.
Gambling and theology: If I claim to be Christian and if I claim to take Christianity seriously, then poker is not exempt from being scrutinized by my faith (nor is the general concept of gambling). What does the Bible teach about gambling? Nothing directly, but there have been Christians in the past who have criticized gambling. There is admittedly a variety of views out there, and I'm not completely convinced one way or the other. But (clearly) I am comfortable with the view that gambling is permissible, under the restraints of self control. Basic Hold'em (PROMYS 2002) : As a counselor at the PROMYS program, I gave a short series of Saturday night talks on Hold'em (truthfully, it's more about general poker theory in the context of limit Hold'em). If you're interested in learning general concepts and you're too cheap to buy the book ("Theory of Poker"), this is a resonable first order approximation. You won't get the "When you have... do this" type of advice, but you will begin to develop the appropriate categories for processing poker strategy. For the record, I am aware of errors in the text, but that's what you get for free notes written by someone who was just getting into poker. Back then, I was far less developed as a player. Three years from now, I hope to say the same thing about my play today.

Articles on Strategy: I've decided to change this. I do so much posting at Two Plus Two Publishing that I don't want to retype things for the sake of having a copy of it here. Instead, I'm turning this area into a little library of links to posts which I like for various reasons. If you're trying to look me up there, I post under "Aaron W." (if you post there, send me a PM sometime). You can also visit the MicroLimit Public Library where you can find these posts and many more.

Preflop Posts Postflop Posts Interesting Hands Miscellaneous
My Stud8 Journey
I probably stink at stud8. I tried for a while, but I had a little boating accident and haven't gone back since. There used to be a bunch of links to a bunch of posts, but they just took up space and really didn't do much except to show that I'm not so good at Stud8.

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