Questions to reread and re-respond(is that a word?)

[william deangelis]

1. What is a large enough amount of hands to determine if you are a consistent winner and ready to move in limits? At least a ball park figure, on how many BB/100 at .5/$1 should one be making to go to $1/$2

2. a. What is aggression # in poker tracker, just registered trying to figure out all the stuff in it.

b. What does vol. put $ in the pot mean. Is that a actual amount in dollars or a percent?

c. The same for vol. for sb(small blind I assume?) and why is this relevant?

d. What is a moderately aggressive PF raise % Mine is at 10% but I pretty sure it should be a little higher. I am just incorporating SSH or any coherent strategy based on +EV for my preflop game(I wasn't raising enough or limping in late poisition).

e. Any other pointers for pokertraker or guidelines? I know someone will probably tell me to search but I like live feedback that I can respond to myself. I will one day answer the same questions I am asking.

3. As a beginner is it smart to venture into no limit, obviously low buy in. Or should I stick to limit and go from there?

4. This one kinda relates to question #1, how much does multitabling reduce BB/100, I usually at least play 2 tables, when I was clearing some bonuses I did 4. I can keep up, but I think playing two helps me identify situations that I need to study more.

Thanks for any help

[Rudbaeck]

1) About 25,000 hands to be relatively certain. Yes, this is alot. And if you are willing to move back down in limits then there is no reason to not take a stab once you have a sufficient bankroll. (About 300BB for the next limit.)

2a) Aggression factor is (bet%+raise%)/call%. If you include pre-flop numbers you want this over 1.5, if you don't include pre-flop numbers you want it over 2.

2b) It's the percentage that player put money into the pot while not a blind.

2c) How often a person completes the small blind is actually pretty interesting. You'll see people do this too much quite often, especially at limits where the sb is 1/3 of the bb. Like 3/6 where the blinds are 1 and 3 respectively.

2d) It's most likely fine. A good rule of thumb is that pf raise should be about half of your vp$ip.

2e) Find all of bisonbison's and MSsunshine's about PokerTracker.

3) As long as you keep it quite clear in your head that NL games play _very_ different from limit games you'll be fine. Obviously you should stop if you are bleeding money.

4) Depends on the person alot. For me I think it's about even, I get bored playing one table and overplay marginal hands.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
1) About 25,000 hands to be relatively certain. Yes, this is alot.

[/ QUOTE ]

How can anyone in the B&M world ever know that they're a winning poker player before committing to it full time?

Also, someone else brought up this issue on a past thread: In the time it takes to play 25K hands, i'm almost certain to have improved my game. So how can i ever make meaningful observations of my playing strength?

In practice, if i go up +300 BBet on a level, i'm going to "declare victory", even if the stats don't bear it out to a 95% confidence interval....

[RED_RAIN]

[ QUOTE ]
2a) Aggression factor is (bet%+raise%)/call%. If you include pre-flop numbers you want this over 1.5, if you don't include pre-flop numbers you want it over 2.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ummm I'm going to disagree. Being overly aggressive at a calling station level I think can lead to disaster.

I was at a mere 1.06 Aggro rating which was too low cause I wasn't aggressive enough. But I know it wouldn't be at 1.5. I am barely there in 1/2 and 2/4.

At .5/1 I had 35k hands at a BB/100 of 4.90

[RED_RAIN]

[ QUOTE ]
1. What is a large enough amount of hands to determine if you are a consistent winner and ready to move in limits? At least a ball park figure, on how many BB/100 at .5/$1 should one be making to go to $1/$2

[/ QUOTE ]

I would want at least 2 BB/100 rate at the lower levels (.5/1 and below, 1/2) to feel I should move up a level. At 15k you get a small glimpse, 20k-25k better idea, 30k pretty solid, 50k solid. But to be honest, even at 10k I can usually tell if I was running good or not, and if I feel like I am killing the level.

You can read my progress post and when I made moves up from .5/1 to 3/6 at this link.

My Progress Report (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=micro&Number=953608&Forum= ,,All_Forums,,&Words=&Searchpage=1&Limit=25&Main=8 35795&Search=true&where=&Name=6223&daterange=&newe rval=&newertype=&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Po st953608)

[RED_RAIN]

[ QUOTE ]
3. As a beginner is it smart to venture into no limit, obviously low buy in. Or should I stick to limit and go from there?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you need to mix it up cause you get bored or want to play both, go ahead. IMO I think it's best to concentrate heavily on one. 98s looks a lot better in NL than it does in limit.

[RED_RAIN]

[ QUOTE ]
How can anyone in the B&M world ever know that they're a winning poker player before committing to it full time?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think there is an "x" amount of hours when looking at B&M. Since online you can play 4 tables, can't compare that to one table live.

What my friends and I do for live is if we lose "x" amount of BBs, we move down. If we win "x" amount and feel we can beat the game over multiple poker sessions, we move up.

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1) About 25,000 hands to be relatively certain. Yes, this is alot.

[/ QUOTE ]

How can anyone in the B&M world ever know that they're a winning poker player before committing to it full time?

[/ QUOTE ]

They can't, and Mason (I think) touches on it somewhere and mentions 1,000 hours as a solid indicator of being there. Someone with a full time job but no kids and poker as their only hobby can easily play a thousand hours in a single year if the casino is within a reasonable distance.

Most prospective pros take a stab at it way earlier. And most prospective pros go broke. I wonder if we can find a causal connection here?

If you're only 80% certain that you aren't a break even or even losing player, do you really want to make your living playing poker? (The answer to this is obviously a resounding YES from way too many people. Guess it's a good thing we have welfare after all.)

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
3. As a beginner is it smart to venture into no limit, obviously low buy in. Or should I stick to limit and go from there?


[/ QUOTE ]

Try what many of us do. Limit ring games, and No Limit tournaments. Although tournaments play differently than ring games, tournaments also cap your loss to the buy-in, and you get to play many more hands than you might normally at a No Limit ring game table. When you feel comfortable playing no limit, then you can move to the ring game table, keeping in mind the differences between tournaments and ring game play.