2k post!

[Razvan729]

this is serious for me, cause i have some problem with self control.

how do you manage 40k-60k hands runs where you know you played good and you really did, but still you're losing or at best you're breaking even? i mean,mentally speaking,how do you manage these periods?

[d0zer]

this is serious for me, cause i have some problem with self control.

how do you manage 40k-60k hands runs where you know you played good and you really did, but still you're losing or at best you're breaking even? i mean,mentally speaking,how do you manage these periods?

I'm more inclined to hold myself at least somewhat accountable for 50k+ BE runs. There's always bad play in there and if you don't believe that you're lying to yourself about your ability. Negative variance is going to contribute, but it almost always affects people's play as well.

I would sometimes remind myself that I can beat these games by looking at lifetime graphs. Dropping stakes, reducing tables, shorter sessions, studying more, more focus can also help rebuild confidence when you're on a sustained bad run, but you should really use it as motivation to study your ass off and become awesome at the game instead of wasting energy convincing yourself that you're the unluckiest player that's ever lived.

If you met someone who had no knowledge of poker with a sound mind, good discipline and above average intelligence. Who lacked direction/passion in there hobbies/career. Would you ever recommend they strive to become a amateur/professional poker player?

rarely, but the people best suited to it are smart young guys with gambol in their blood and nothing to lose.

Do you think there are legitimate reasons in poker to pass on some marginal +EV opportunities in order to reduce overall variance?

If yes, list some. If no, why not?

As poker players we are taught to take every edge we can. That being said, some people with bad tilt issues could consider player a lower variance game if they start playing like crap everytime they tilt over dropping 2 BI in a session or something, but that's really just a band-aid over the gaping wound that is supertilt. The tilt must be dealt with at its root if this tiltmonkey ever wants to really succeed at the game.

do you believe that NLHE will remain the most popular and widespread form of poker for the next 10, 20, 40 years? or do you think the tide will recede as it did with draw, stud, LHE etc?

Who knows...humans are notoriously bad at predicting the future so I won't even bother adding to the plethora of stabs in the dark about what the future holds.

I will say that I don't think NLHE is going away anytime soon, and any trend towards a new dominant game will occur more gradually than abruptly.

[daviddem]

As poker players we are taught to take every edge we can. That being said, some people with bad tilt issues could consider player a lower variance game if they start playing like crap everytime they tilt over dropping 2 BI in a session or something, but that's really just a band-aid over the gaping wound that is supertilt. The tilt must be dealt with at its root if this tiltmonkey ever wants to really succeed at the game.

Take a look at this post. If you had only time to put in 120k hands a year, and your goal for this year was to move up from, say, 5NL to 10NL, would this not be a valid reason to choose to play the lower winrate/lower variance option for a better chance to achieve your goal within this timeframe?

[d0zer]

Take a look at this post. If you had only time to put in 120k hands a year, and your goal for this year was to move up from, say, 5NL to 10NL, would this not be a valid reason to choose to play the lower winrate/lower variance option for a better chance to achieve your goal within this timeframe?

I don't know anything about shitty goals like taking an entire year to move from 5NL to 10NL over 120k hands. Microstakes are already so low variance with all the weaktight regs and fish by the bucketful so if you can't handle that variance just quit poker already.

[daviddem]

I don't know anything about shitty goals like taking an entire year to move from 5NL to 10NL over 120k hands. Microstakes are already so low variance with all the weaktight regs and fish by the bucketful so if you can't handle that variance just quit poker already.

Apologies for stinking up your 2000th post with my shitty example.

Enjoy the 2005th.

[Sasquach991]

How in the cornbread hell did you convince your wife that you could make money at pokers while on Pat leave?

Was the poker money absolutely necessary to live on while on Pat leave or could you just get by eating beans and using cloth diapers if you didn't have it?

Did wife constantly ask you how it was going or did she leave you alone?

How much do I bet/fold?

[d0zer]

Lemonfest was canceled. I'll try to convince lemon to have one this year, but it's gunna be tough now that he has a kid.

philly: bone fosho

I've had at least 2 100k BE stretches under my belt, I think the last one was 2009 when I went from playing 100NL FR to 200NL 6m. miracle I broke even instead of massively losing imo.

How in the cornbread hell did you convince your wife that you could make money at pokers while on Pat leave?

Was the poker money absolutely necessary to live on while on Pat leave or could you just get by eating beans and using cloth diapers if you didn't have it?

Did wife constantly ask you how it was going or did she leave you alone?

Wife got confidence in my ability to beat the games when money routinely came in over a couple years. I also had the ability to go back to work if I absolutely had to, and I often had a buffer of a few paychecks. which wasn't enough but w/e gambol. The money was absolutely necessary and it did make downswongs more stressful for me which she hated cuz it would affect my mood.

She wouldn't ask me too much. If I had a bad session, she could usually tell by my demeanor and then would just say "bad session eh?". "yeah". and that was usually the end of it. I rarely provided specifics.

How much do I bet/fold?

Without knowing anything about your game, I'm gunna go out on a limb and say with some degree of confidence that somewhere in the range of 50-90% of the time you bet/call, you should be bet/folding.

...but it's possible that I'm just projecting my leaks on you

[d0zer]

Apologies for stinking up your 2000th post with my shitty example.

Enjoy the 2005th.

It's a fine example of bad goals people set. I've always taken issue with monetary goals because it's just not something you have tons of control over so you're setting yourself up for failure. As a beginning player, the only thing you should be focused on is learning how to play well. You won't have a refined enough EV eye to even know when spots are slightly +EV, your main focus should be distinguishing between clearly +EV and -EV spots.

Just get better, play disciplined poker and money will come. Don't waste mental energy thinking about "after x hands, I want to have won y money so I can move up to stake z". Just play and move up when you feel like you've comfortably beat a stake. Playing scared because you're afraid of not hitting some arbitrary goal is a disaster for both your immediate results and your growth as a player.