Learning to Ride

I've played limit holdem for a very long time.  I'd like to think that I'm pretty good at it.  I have been a consistent winner for many years, and consider myself an excellent short handed and heads up limit player.  However, I would like to make myself a well rounded player, and have started to delve into no limit a bit.  I've mainly played the 5/5 no limit at Oceans-11, and I usually buy in for 200 big blinds, although occasionally I will buy in full for 300 big blinds. 

However, this creates a dilemma for me.  Since I am still learning this game, I am for sure not a winning player yet, unless the game is full of droolers, which is usually not the case.  So I am giving up both real dollars and opportunity cost by sitting in this game instead of a limit game when one is running.  So I need to consider, what is the overall cost, and what is the future expected value I can expect by eventually becoming competent, and a winning player in that game.  Can I expect to win more than $60/hr consistently in that game?  I don't know.  I'm not sure what a reasonable win rate is to be expected in that game for a competent winning player.

So I have been back from Vegas for a little over a week, and got in a quite a bit of poker play since then.  I am still in between projects at work, and my work load has been considerably lighter than normal.  I start my new project in earnest next week.

Here's a list of the sessions I put in last week:

8/16 Kill +20 15 minutes
5/5 NL -5000 8 hours 20 minutes
20/40 +1920 3 hours 24 minutes
5/5 NL +63 10 minutes
8/16 Kill +376 14 hours
5/5 NL +735 2 hours 10 minutes
20/40 +3385 7 hours 10 minutes
5/5 NL -145 20 minutes
8/16 Kill +314 25 minutes
20/40 +455 8 hours
40/80 -800 7 hours 30 minutes

And thus the dilemma is revealed.  In the limit games I played, I won $5,670 in 40 hours and 44 minutes of play for an hourly rate of $139.20.  However, in the no limit games I played, I lost $4,347 in 11 hours of play for an hourly loss of $395.18.  Now granted I had a huge loss of $5,000 in an absolutely horrific 8 hour session, but unfortunately, sessions like this are going to happen, and in terms of real dollars, they count.

I read a poem recently by William Ernest Henley, that I think is particularly inspiring, and I think also is apropos for me with regards to my poker playing, and I think can also be applied to virtually any part of your life.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I like this poem so much, I am thinking of getting a framed copy of it so I can put it up in my office to read each morning when I come into work.