Table selection and bankroll requirements.

One of the lessons I've learned the hard way is not to put too much of your bankroll into a single game. The first time I played poker online, I had just deposited $1 000. I took all of it to a no-limit hold'em game with 100/200 $ blinds. I made the decision to sit in the seat 2 places to the left of the big blind in a tenhanded game. I could feel that luck was pouring out from that seat, so I decided to post a live blind right away instead of waiting for the big blind. Here's what happened next:

The guy in the first seat made a standard raise of 4x the big blind from early position. I had the feeling that this was a shark that's trying to steal the blinds without much of a hand. He probably expected everyone else to fold. I looked down to find the Jack of clubs, 3 of diamonds. This is a quality hand, as you'll see in the "hand-selection chart" that I'm going to present. One of its greatest strengths is that your opponent will never suspect that you raise with that hand, so he might fold a lot of his possible hands. I moved all-in, expecting him to give up on his steal. All the other dudes folded, and my opponent instantly called, even though it's $ 200 to call into a $ 2 099 pot. He flipped over pocket tens. I said to myself: "What a horrible call!".

The flop comes [J 5 3]
turn [3]
river[T]

The sucker caught a runner-runner full house to beat me on the river. What a luckbox. I told him how lucky he was, and went to beat up my brother who was in ROFL-mode at the rail. He loaned me $1 for teaching him some manners. I put the dollar into my account and moved over to a roulette table. Thanks to my skills at roulette, I got back to $ 1000 in two and a half minute.

I learned one important thing. Never put all of your bankroll into a single game. Now I keep at least 50 % of it out of the games I decide to play. This means that I sometimes have to pass up on juicy games with lots of Shark, but my bankroll is always safe.