To Save or Not to Save

[Eric Keydel]

Question for the hive mind out here.

There are no good games near me at all. Maybe a couple home games but that is it. Nearest place to play is about 6 hours away. Now there is a WSOP even coming up in January and I know the games will be really juicy and am planning on making a trip. So do I save my bankroll and wait for January while studying strategy or do I play in some of the bad games around here to get the live experience.

[Old Dog]

Eric,
My guess is that you aren’t getting many answers because there isn’t enough information for readers to know what to tell you, e.g. how much experience you have, what other options there are (like online play, a meetup group, or finding a few players to take very small stakes seriously and start a game). Also, it seems to be the trend that players are joining sites online that offer instruction. Some of these offer teasers that are free.

Personally, I don’t learn well from online sites. I need to have cards and chips and people in front of me. I started my own group of beginners and we’d have $5 tournaments followed by $5 buy-in cash games with 5 and 10 cent antes. Everyone took it seriously. There were dumb plays, but not because the stakes were small. It’s because we were beginners.

At some point, you have to go play with better players, and that means you’ll most likely lose for a bit. I called it paying for lessons. And yes, I read a lot of books.

So do you save for the WSOP? If so, then expect to run into better players and not do well. You’ll learn a lot, and the luck factor may even get you some good hours of play in. If you decide to play in the local games, discipline is the word of the day. Work on playing well, know that the variance will be large, and learn to beat the bad players. It’s tempting and exciting to play in a big event, but probably smarter to find a more sure way to climb the learning curve. Good luck!

[Author]

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