This  is of course a question a lot of people are wondering about. After having played online poker for some time now and also having quite some experience with live play at home games and in casinos, I thought it might be nice to share my view on this particular question.

First question asked should of course be, can someone be a consitent winner at (online) poker, merely because he is more skilled at the game then the other players ? I'd have to say yes. Anyone with a little bit of poker knowledge has an obvious advantage over pure beginners and at more advanced levels the differences between the level of skill of the players involved is smaller, but still present.

However, if this advantage could be expressed in percentages, I would have to say that at the higher levels this advantage is only about 1 or maybe 2% at the very highest. This means they will have to play a LOT of poker before the money will be coming their way. Consistently, is something else. This is maybe easier at the higher levels as the swings that your bankroll will take are quite regular and in general you will slowly be increasing your bankroll over time.

At the lower stakes, everything is upside down. You do have a large advantage, but because the players play such a wide variaty of hands against you it's hard to make any reads or predictions on their play. This means you will experience heavier swings as it will be harder to make the proper call on the river. Often at these stakes if there is a good amount of chips already in the pot, you will barely ever make it to the river without going all in anyway. More pre flop all-ins means less skill involved in the play of the hand. This happens a lot more often at low stakes, so there is a lot smaller advantage to the skilled players in the end. So even though they have a huge lead because of their higher skill, it affects the outcome of the game less because of the luck involved in low stakes holdem games.

So my answer to the question is .. yes you can be a consistent winner, but you have to be very very good and be willing to play against the best of the best at the highest stakes. Better bring a nasty big bankroll for that job my friend. So my ambitions are not high at all with online poker. I'd like to be able to win back my money most of the time, maybe win some or lose some and during that time I'll learn the finer points of the game to prepare me for perhaps bigger live tournaments when me and my wife move to Vegas.

Sigh ..  what does a man have to do to win some money at poker ?

I think the real 'bad run' is more or less over, as I'm actually winning hands when I'm supposed to. When I'm a 80 to 90 percent favorite when the chips go in, I expect to win it .. 8 out of 10 times .. This was not the case for a while as people were just outrunning me on the river every time. Now it's a little bit back to normal, but still not enough to win the last few times I played.

I was out drinking with my friends on friday night when some of my friends there decided to start a little tournament at their house. Frankly, I was so drunk there I don't really remember a lot. I was there to have fun and not to win big money .. the stakes were too low for that anyway. So then I get a call from another friend of mine (by now it's about 2 o clock at night) that he's got friends coming over for a cash game and there's a spot for me if I want in. I was a bit sobered up by now and although I had lost that tournament, I did remember that I had won some good pots. So decided I should try my luck at this cash game.

The stakes were 20c/40c blinds and the game was no limit holdem (as always at our homegames). I got dealt some nice starting hands and played them well in the beginning. This brought my initial buy in from 10 euros up to about 35. My strong play was obviously invoking fear in my opponents as they started folding to my pre flop 3x blinds raises. Something that had not happened to me in some time .. The players were respecting my raises. I took down some minor pots this way, when I got dealt AK in middle position. I raise it up again to 1 euro 20 and get a caller behind me, IIRC he was on the button. The flop comes all low cards, I think it was 8 high. I put out a continuation bet with my AK even though I completely missed the flop in all possible ways. He calls and the next card is an ace ! I think for a litle while, but obviously not well enough and decide it's a good spot to push and try to double up through this guy, or take down the pot right here.  After some deliberation he calls ... with top two pair - aces and eights.

I should have known he connected on the flop when he called me and placed a nice bet on the ace to find out where i was. I put in a huge bet on a small pot ... my own fault. I'm not used to cash games yet, still have to get rid of some of those sit and go tendencies.

After that I have played 2 small sit and gos online at Full Tilt Poker for $5 each, placing 4th each time. The first one was quite a funny story. In the second hand I flop two pair with K10, and push all in after a raise. I get called by someone with JJ and he rivers a J. I lost all but my last 30 chips there, but managed to play it back all the way up to 5000 chips before going out with aces.

Still not winning in the end, but at least not getting rivered every single hand ! 

Well  it seems my bad run is not nearing its end yet. I went to play at a friends homegame and stayed in for 2 full hands. Got busted and went straight home. I was not going to sit around and wait for the next SNG to start ... If I would, I would go bust in the 3rd hand anyway. Most likely against a K3 or K4 or some bizar strong hand like that.

How did I go bust ? First hand I get AJ ... I raise, get called by 2 donks and the flop shows no paint. I check as I see no point in Cbetting on such a smal pot. Someone raises and I decide to fold. Later he shows me AJ which he also folds to the 3rd players agressive bet. Nothing wrong here ... nice fold from me. Next hand ... KK !! Ok, someone raises to 10x which is bizarro high. I decide I must make clear I have a hand, as to not get callers with an A2 to hit that miracle ace on the river. So I make it 300 to go, which is 10% of the starting chips. Guy next to me calls, and so does the original raiser. Flop comes 882 and I immediatelly think, if someone has an 8 here, I'm going home. There' s no way you can call a raise and a re-raise with anything with an 8. Even 88 would have been a bad call. First player bets 150, second player calls. I decide to shove and if someone shows me an eight I'm going home. Of course the donk shows me K8 diamonds, I get up and explain I've had it with players like this. I'm outta there.

 I get some name calling behin me about how not social I am, but I have stopped caring about what they say. All i can think is ... how can you call with any 8 in your hand if it's raised to 30x the big blind ? So I've decided not to play poker with amateurs anymore. That's a little problem because I don't really know enough good players yet to organise a serious game. About 4 so far that I know will only play KK or AA if it's gona raise, re-raise pre flop.

Ok enough of my rant .. I think my poker blog is going to be e bit quiet in the coming months. 

I never understood what poker players meant when they said they were on a bad run. My game is good, but I keep losing important hands - usually on the river; they say. I thought they must be misplaying their hands, or playing on the wrong stakes.  But now I know exactly what they mean ! I've been on a bad run for over 2 weeks now and the end is not in sight yet. I'm going to play another tournament at a friends house tonight, so we'll see what happens. But the last few times I played in a live game where just unbelievable.

I keep getting great starting hands and hitting the flop hard. I get people to commit all their chips on an underpair, when I have top two pair. Then the rivercard comes and trips them up. I rebuy and 2 hands later the exact same thing happens. Because I'm constantly losing, I get no rspect at the table either. So I raise with AK, I get called with K3o ... the flop shows a K which I check because I expect the button to bet. He does and I move all in to take down the pot right there. The button doesn't believe me (even though I show them the mortal nuts every time I move my chips in) and calls me with his K with no kicker. The dealer rivers a 3 and I'm busted by another 3 outer.

i really hope my luck will turn around soon. At the moment I'm still confident I played everything correctly and I'm just having an incredibl bad run of cards. But if this keeps up for much longer, I don't know if my confidence will stay so strong. Sometimes ... it's hard just to make a pair. Other times you flop hard and it doesn't help you at all in the end. it's all down to the turn of the cards.