3 ms·

You should really give No Limit Hold'em or Pot Limit Omaha a try. Poker is a game of astounding complexity once you start taking it seriously and it's quite fun

by flud43 13y ago

You should really give No Limit Hold'em or Pot Limit Omaha a try. Poker is a game of astounding complexity once you start taking it seriously and it's quite fun. Combine that with the ability to take a small bankroll, $100 or whatever you're comfortable using as seed money, and turn it into a roll sufficient for high stakes poker (with enough dedication and time) and it truly does become quite an amazing game to play. I personally play heads-up poker. Unlike 9-handed poker, heads-up poker is constant action. It's more dependent on opponent profiling and maximizing expectation on the fly, using experience and statistics. A game of infinite variety. Since April I've taken $200 and, playing online and live poker, have profited in the following ways: +$6458 - online poker heads up matches +$2900 - rakeback/bonuses from pokerstars +$12500 - live tournaments and pot limit omaha cash And that's merely playing recreationally, completely separate from my full time job. You can play a complex, fun game and make money doing it. Who wouldn't enjoy that?

RRiccio 13y ago
I used to be a professional poker player, and although I agree that especially in the beginning -- while you're quickly evolving -- it's a lot of fun, after a while you do it for the money. It's very different from MTG, where me and my friends would play for the thrill of it, spending whatever little money we had to play. The easy test here is: would you play a poker tournament just for fun, if there was nothing at stake? Few people actually do it. The thrill in both cases actually is (or becomes) the money made/lost.
- flud43 13y ago
  If you aren't enjoying it anymore, you probably shouldn't be playing any longer. I didn't advocate playing only for the sake of making money. I suggested it because of how complex a game it is. How much time it takes to master. And because the potential rewards once you do are quite significant, which is a nice added bonus. And I'm not sure when you stopped playing (pre black friday?) but I don't think there's a single point at which I've ever stopped improving. I know many heads-up professionals as well and not a single one of them ever stops learning and improving their game. Stagnation in poker is death. As such, I don't know why you feel like it was a lot of fun at the start but lost that later on. There is always another level deeper you can go. The point of any game is to win. The metric that determines the winner of a game is different in every case. In poker, it's how much money you're making. But that doesn't have anything to do with the game itself. It merely depicts how well you're playing. Learning to maximize expectation with true mathematical finesse while factoring in accurate opponent profiling and gameflow is one of the most challenging things I've ever had to do gamewise. I've played chess since I was 5, Counter-Strike very seriously for five years, WoW for the first 3 years before it went to shit, and have been getting into Go. And in none of those games have I achieved the level of mental satisfaction as I have from poker. Edit: Was your stars alias RRiccio as well? Were you a cash player? You only have ~750 tournaments recorded on sharkscope.
  - RRiccio 13y ago
    There is always room for improving. What I'm saying is that going from level 2 to 3 isn't nearly as fun as going from level 9 to 10. To put in another way: most MtG players I know are still in love with the game 10 years after they started playing competitively, while nearly none of my poker pro friends still play or enjoy poker 5 years after we started. P.S. Played mostly on PP, pre-BF, diff alias.
    - RRiccio 13y ago
      Edit: Of course I meant the opposite on the first sentence.
lukev 13y ago
Are there any legal or quasi-legal ways to play online poker in the US, currently?
- ngokevin 13y ago
  Maybe BitCoin poker rooms?
  - aet 13y ago
    I believe it is illegal in US. They do exist in UK. Not sure on their legality there.
- flud43 13y ago
  Keep forgetting about Black Friday. You can buy a PokerStars account from people in Bolivia/Germany/etc. and use a VPN to connect. I know a few people doing this. There's a new online site in Nevada right now, only for Nevada residents, but I hear it's a pretty big failure. New Jersey is very close to releasing it's own online poker site as well. On top of that I think most US players play on iPoker skins (black chip poker, cake poker, etc.) which allow US players. But yeah, all of them (apart from the Nevada/New Jersey sites) are technically illegal down there. Most professionals who didn't quit poker altogether and didn't transition to live either moved to Canada or some third world country with no taxes and cheap living to grind.
  - sejje 13y ago
    I think "technically illegal" should be defined here. I played professionally a few years back, so this was my understanding of the law then, and I haven't heard of any changes: It's perfectly legal, as a player, to play. Laws have been created that prevent banks from transferring money to and from poker sites. When Black Friday happened, it was primarily because poker sites were committing fraud to work with banks to process payments. There are still sites operating, however they take very, very long to process payments, limit cashouts to a point where professional play is not possible, and can suffer the same fate as the big three sites did on Black Friday.
- 13y ago
sejje 13y ago
FWIW, this is called run-good. It's unlikely your $200 was a proper bankroll when you started, and it's even more unlikely that you or anyone else could consistently replicate these results (when starting out). That said, I'm an ex-husng player, and played them professionally for three years, and I don't disagree with your overall message. Poker is a wonderful game, heads-up play is great and has almost no boring parts, and you can conceivably make a living at it if you put in your time and manage your money well. How are the games these days? When I played it was primarily before superturbos, and I three-tabled $105s on FTP for just under a 60% winrate and 14% ROI. I imagine the average player has really upped their game, though, and that the regulars these days would crush me on average--I'm rusty and the game has matured.
- flud43 13y ago
  Lol, I never said I started out in April, I said I started my bankroll. I've been playing for 5+ years. I just restarted my bankroll in April because I had spent it on bills in February. Those results are based on the following: 2,615 $3.50 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos 1,605 $7 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos 1,792 $15 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos 16,715 $30 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos 211 $60 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos I've also played a handful of MTT tournaments which are a miniscule part of sample size but which result for about $7,500 of that $12,500. I played the $880 Fraser Downs Fall Poker Challenge in Vancouver and cashed 3rd for $7,384. I also won $5,000 that weekend in one session playing pot limit omaha cash. So that is, indeed, small sample size, but the rest is not. Read on. This isn't run good. Once you're up to a sample of around 5000 heads up hyper turbo games, your results begin to accurately depict your actual skill level. I've played 22,938 heads-up hyper-turbo matches since April with a 1.08% ROI, 51.80% winrate, and $6,063.56 net profit before rakeback. And yes, I practiced perfect bankroll management. If you're not living off your bankroll, using a 35/50 buy-in rule (move up when you have 50 buy-ins, move down when you're at 35 buy-ins) is a good, aggressive system to use. If you are, 100 or 200 buy-ins minimum is best, depending on how comfortable you are with variance. I started with $200 which was ~57 buy-ins for the $3.50s on PokerStars. I'm now playing the $30s and $60s with a bankroll over $6000. And yes, people can replicate these results. Easily. My results are, honestly, more on the weaker side among regulars. As for a beginning player, they could easily replicate these results if they actually studied. It's really not that hard to crush the $3.50s-$15s on PokerStars. You just have to think. Most people are there to gamble. The games are excellent these days. Of course the overall player pool took a hit on Black Friday, but there is still tons of action. Hyper-Turbos have only gotten more popular, especially because the best players are booking some of the highest profits among all high stakes players each year. As for a 60% winrate and 14% ROI at super-turbos, THAT is too small of a sample size. It's highly like you're a winning player with a great ROI, but you were on an upswing. You're ROI was likely in the 2.5%-5% range. The highest ROI I've ever seen was around 6% over 20k games (also someone hit 7.5% over 3k games but thats too small a sample). And yes, the average player is slightly better, and the regs have definitely improved as well, but fish are fish. The games up to $15s are very, very soft. The $30s are as well but you'll start to run into a lot more regs at that stake.

by flud43 13y ago

RRiccio 13y ago

I used to be a professional poker player, and although I agree that especially in the beginning -- while you're quickly evolving -- it's a lot of fun, after a while you do it for the money. It's very different from MTG, where me and my friends would play for the thrill of it, spending whatever little money we had to play. The easy test here is: would you play a poker tournament just for fun, if there was nothing at stake? Few people actually do it. The thrill in both cases actually is (or becomes) the money made/lost.

flud43 13y ago
If you aren't enjoying it anymore, you probably shouldn't be playing any longer. I didn't advocate playing only for the sake of making money. I suggested it because of how complex a game it is. How much time it takes to master. And because the potential rewards once you do are quite significant, which is a nice added bonus. And I'm not sure when you stopped playing (pre black friday?) but I don't think there's a single point at which I've ever stopped improving. I know many heads-up professionals as well and not a single one of them ever stops learning and improving their game. Stagnation in poker is death. As such, I don't know why you feel like it was a lot of fun at the start but lost that later on. There is always another level deeper you can go. The point of any game is to win. The metric that determines the winner of a game is different in every case. In poker, it's how much money you're making. But that doesn't have anything to do with the game itself. It merely depicts how well you're playing. Learning to maximize expectation with true mathematical finesse while factoring in accurate opponent profiling and gameflow is one of the most challenging things I've ever had to do gamewise. I've played chess since I was 5, Counter-Strike very seriously for five years, WoW for the first 3 years before it went to shit, and have been getting into Go. And in none of those games have I achieved the level of mental satisfaction as I have from poker. Edit: Was your stars alias RRiccio as well? Were you a cash player? You only have ~750 tournaments recorded on sharkscope.
- RRiccio 13y ago
  There is always room for improving. What I'm saying is that going from level 2 to 3 isn't nearly as fun as going from level 9 to 10. To put in another way: most MtG players I know are still in love with the game 10 years after they started playing competitively, while nearly none of my poker pro friends still play or enjoy poker 5 years after we started. P.S. Played mostly on PP, pre-BF, diff alias.
  - RRiccio 13y ago
    Edit: Of course I meant the opposite on the first sentence.

lukev 13y ago

Are there any legal or quasi-legal ways to play online poker in the US, currently?

ngokevin 13y ago
Maybe BitCoin poker rooms?
- aet 13y ago
  I believe it is illegal in US. They do exist in UK. Not sure on their legality there.
flud43 13y ago
Keep forgetting about Black Friday. You can buy a PokerStars account from people in Bolivia/Germany/etc. and use a VPN to connect. I know a few people doing this. There's a new online site in Nevada right now, only for Nevada residents, but I hear it's a pretty big failure. New Jersey is very close to releasing it's own online poker site as well. On top of that I think most US players play on iPoker skins (black chip poker, cake poker, etc.) which allow US players. But yeah, all of them (apart from the Nevada/New Jersey sites) are technically illegal down there. Most professionals who didn't quit poker altogether and didn't transition to live either moved to Canada or some third world country with no taxes and cheap living to grind.
- sejje 13y ago
  I think "technically illegal" should be defined here. I played professionally a few years back, so this was my understanding of the law then, and I haven't heard of any changes: It's perfectly legal, as a player, to play. Laws have been created that prevent banks from transferring money to and from poker sites. When Black Friday happened, it was primarily because poker sites were committing fraud to work with banks to process payments. There are still sites operating, however they take very, very long to process payments, limit cashouts to a point where professional play is not possible, and can suffer the same fate as the big three sites did on Black Friday.
13y ago

sejje 13y ago

FWIW, this is called run-good. It's unlikely your $200 was a proper bankroll when you started, and it's even more unlikely that you or anyone else could consistently replicate these results (when starting out). That said, I'm an ex-husng player, and played them professionally for three years, and I don't disagree with your overall message. Poker is a wonderful game, heads-up play is great and has almost no boring parts, and you can conceivably make a living at it if you put in your time and manage your money well. How are the games these days? When I played it was primarily before superturbos, and I three-tabled $105s on FTP for just under a 60% winrate and 14% ROI. I imagine the average player has really upped their game, though, and that the regulars these days would crush me on average--I'm rusty and the game has matured.

flud43 13y ago
Lol, I never said I started out in April, I said I started my bankroll. I've been playing for 5+ years. I just restarted my bankroll in April because I had spent it on bills in February. Those results are based on the following: 2,615 $3.50 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos 1,605 $7 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos 1,792 $15 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos 16,715 $30 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos 211 $60 Heads-Up Hyper-Turbos I've also played a handful of MTT tournaments which are a miniscule part of sample size but which result for about $7,500 of that $12,500. I played the $880 Fraser Downs Fall Poker Challenge in Vancouver and cashed 3rd for $7,384. I also won $5,000 that weekend in one session playing pot limit omaha cash. So that is, indeed, small sample size, but the rest is not. Read on. This isn't run good. Once you're up to a sample of around 5000 heads up hyper turbo games, your results begin to accurately depict your actual skill level. I've played 22,938 heads-up hyper-turbo matches since April with a 1.08% ROI, 51.80% winrate, and $6,063.56 net profit before rakeback. And yes, I practiced perfect bankroll management. If you're not living off your bankroll, using a 35/50 buy-in rule (move up when you have 50 buy-ins, move down when you're at 35 buy-ins) is a good, aggressive system to use. If you are, 100 or 200 buy-ins minimum is best, depending on how comfortable you are with variance. I started with $200 which was ~57 buy-ins for the $3.50s on PokerStars. I'm now playing the $30s and $60s with a bankroll over $6000. And yes, people can replicate these results. Easily. My results are, honestly, more on the weaker side among regulars. As for a beginning player, they could easily replicate these results if they actually studied. It's really not that hard to crush the $3.50s-$15s on PokerStars. You just have to think. Most people are there to gamble. The games are excellent these days. Of course the overall player pool took a hit on Black Friday, but there is still tons of action. Hyper-Turbos have only gotten more popular, especially because the best players are booking some of the highest profits among all high stakes players each year. As for a 60% winrate and 14% ROI at super-turbos, THAT is too small of a sample size. It's highly like you're a winning player with a great ROI, but you were on an upswing. You're ROI was likely in the 2.5%-5% range. The highest ROI I've ever seen was around 6% over 20k games (also someone hit 7.5% over 3k games but thats too small a sample). And yes, the average player is slightly better, and the regs have definitely improved as well, but fish are fish. The games up to $15s are very, very soft. The $30s are as well but you'll start to run into a lot more regs at that stake.