End of a charming poker career

Yeah, I got the new habit of learning and playing online poker 3 weeks back. Mostly because, I was interested in the Maths (probability) and discipline involved behind playing good poker...

And well I thought, so how bad can it be :). I have the patience, can maintain the discipline and can learn the Maths too.

So I did learn the poker terms, Maths behind the game, the basic hand strategy, etc from few online links, mostly:

Wikipedia Poker Odds
Poker Professor
Super System 1 & 2 little bit
and also watched Poker After Dark and PokerStars.net million dollar challenge on Hulu.

and finally started playing on Poker Stars initially with virtual money (also called play money chips), which I quickly multiplied 6 times. That is when I thought it is time to test with real money. The most important lesson in playing poker, don't put money you can't afford to loose. So I started with modest $10 (and another $10 soon after) and quickly lost all of it.

The reasons why I lost, the temptation to play marginal hands and not folding till the end...for ex.

Hand Card: Q, 8 off-suit, Flop comes 6 6 Q and I raise to pot size. I get raised to twice of that, I call. Get raised on turn and river and I go all in, finally to be beaten by A Q. How stupid.

Hand Card: 9 5 off-suit on blind. Flop 9 x 9. I check, thinking I have the nuts. Turn comes A, I raise to 1/2 of pot. Get raised, I call. Get raised on river, go All-in. Get beaten by hand A A i.e. Full house.
Why will a guy slow-play A A, shouldn't have I raised after the flop (maybe he would have called anyway)

Hand Card: J Q suited, get raised 3x on blind, call. Flop comes J Q x. I check, thinking I got the nuts. Turn comes K, raise on turn, get called, raise on river, get called. Get beaten by A 10 straight.
(Always be aggressive, I said to myself many times, and then saw people winning money slow-playing, did the same and lost..)

And how do they read people? I tried and got frustrated when most pots close without show-down. :)

These are the recent examples, don't remember the rest of the fall down. Though I will analyze them through Hand History.

Mistakes I did:

1. Some loose betting?
2. Didn't calculate all the hands that could beat me and just kept betting once I had a decent hand (not the nut hand).
3. Underestimated the 0.01/0.02 and 0.02/0.05 cents blind rooms. There are no fish there, I became the fish :).
4. And finally, didn't play patiently at all.

So where do I go from here? Back to not playing poker :).

But some suggestions: poker is not a bad game, it has lot of strategy involved and if mastered, you have the potential to make money out of it. In fact, I think it is almost same as putting money in stock market (though maybe a little more risky). Of course, majority of people who haven't mastered the many skills the game involves, and give into temptation, lose.

But I do strongly believe that one can win regularly in poker, especially No Limit Texas Hold'em (if not, then their won't be people who make their living out of this game, check WSOP winners and their career earnings). But enough justification, I am still very interested in the game, especially learning the many skills it requires to be a good player (as I think they are good life skills as well) and also just enjoyed this completely new perspective on gambling. :)

On to the next hobby.