One Good Hand Makes it All Worthwhile!

[Student]

As a beginner, there are trials and tribulations, but yesterday a single nice hand made all the work and discovery worthwhile!

I play 1/2 cents NL HE on PokerStars, and have been very much influenced by Miller, "Getting Started in Hold'em." This single nice hand came within the context of SSS (Short Stack Strategy), which is the idea reported publically by Miller in GSiH.

I'd decided early on I needed to alternate between reading about poker and playing it. Why? Because I didn't have any sort of frame of reference for poker (other than what I'd seen and heard on TV), and I thought this would be a good way of getting one. Instead the playing worked against what I was reading, so I ended up with the usual misunderstanding of fundamentals that comes so naturally for those very experienced poker players who are proud of the fact they've never read a book about poker, and who are everywhere in the world of poker. Unfortunately their play demonstrates results of such a course of action, and it ain't pretty!

So I spent an unbelievable 37 days reading GSiH, hoping to secure fundamental understanding, to replace the garbage I'd picked up playing poorly against poor (but very experienced) players. I'm not going to say I was all that applied and focused in my education. I don't know if it's the press of responsibilities of being the senior male ancestor, for a family that started with me here in New Mexico, or simply because I'm now 67 years old and consequently learn both slower and in greater depth. You can answer that one for yourself, eh?

So today is Father's Day, and it is also the day my 200th message will be posted to 2+2 (this one, in fact!). To celebrate I'm going to share as well as I can how I have been learning poker, and where I think I am today. But then again, most of my posts have been my honest attempt to share what happens to a reasonably intelligent, math oriented, and senior grandfatherly kind of person, when first exposed to poker in his old age. Since most readers will be younger, realize my experiences should provide hope and encouragement to you, because you know that once you've mastered poker, you'll have a source of income for so many years to go, all earned right here in your own home, and played at any crazy hours of the day you may select! Today my title on 2+2 changes from Member to Enthusiast, and I suspect you agree with me that Student is nothing, if not enthusiastic. Just look at all those exclamation points, if you're still in doubt!!!

Yesterday I labored to organize my thoughts about SSS, so I could go back to playing poker, as above. I wrote an essay to myself, explaining the basics of SSS, and I prepared a couple of cards, showing different sets of opening hands Miller proposes, to execute SSS properly. I'd gone for 37 days before I played NL HE again, and that was last Monday. At that time I received nothing but glorious hands, and I won all pots I went into, retiring from the game after 9 hands, winning net 43 cents (21.5 BBs, played at the rate of 239 BB/100). I realized from this that SSS was going to be a very good thing for me, but that I didn't actually have command of SSS sufficient to do okay with it.

Miller had stated one such as me might expect to read GSiH, and probably reread it again and again, but that in a month one might hope to at least breakeven in low stakes poker (read his introduction in GSiH to see what he actually said, and then go to page 16 of Miller et al, "Small-Stakes Hold'em" to learn more about experienced, but badly flawed, players of poker. He also predicted one would be making quite a lot of money in a few months, and my deduction about what he said I interpreted as saying to me "provided you were willing to work very hard at learning poker some more, using many other books about poker for the purpose."

Whether I got it right or not, the truth is those were the prescriptions I self-imposed for myself, and if they've wasted my time and I got it really wrong, then I have only myself to blame. I'm working hard at poker, and I shall continue to work hard. I aspire to being a tournament NL HE player, and frankly I mean this to say only at the very lowest levels of tournament play. There are 5 Indian casinos within 25 miles of my home where I expect to play low-stakes tournaments, and I enjoy the idea of playing NL HE in SNG single-table tournaments online. I aspire to having a fun hobby, where I meet lots of friends, and the cost of my hobby won't be too much. By the way, a couple of weeks ago I bought some poker books on eBay, and it cost another $100, so that's where this hobby is taking me to.

Because I talked too much above, I'll tell about the actual hand that prompted this post in a separate dispatch. Sorry! In the meantime, have fun with your poker, and may it lead to prosperity for you!

Dave

[Ed Miller]

Hi Student,

I'm glad you are enjoying poker. Please don't take my "within one month" or "within a few months" comments as challenges or measuring sticks. Some people are going to achieve success more quickly than others simply because of blind luck... and some are just going to "get it" more quickly than others for whatever reason.

For me, it took six months of serious play and study before I started being a consistent winner. Now that was, of course, before the excellent books SSH and GSIH were out /images/graemlins/tongue.gif, but it can take some time.

When I write, I do so with the aspiring professional in mind. My primary aim is to teach average players with a goal of playing full-time to realize that goal. So naturally some of the material in my books will be more "hardcore" than what a recreational player would want.

As long as you are playing as a hobby, there's no timetable for success. Just keep learning and make sure you are having fun. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Ed

[Student]

Thank you, Ed!

As I read your introduction to GSiH, it was while reviewing your book at Borders. I interpreted this introduction as a very useful sales pitch for the book (and I bought it too, and Thank You for writing it!). If you were to reread the way I brought into my post the pair of expectations, I hope you and others would see that I understand that each person would emerge from reading GSiH differently. The key is reading the book, PLUS working. Especially for one presently 67 years old, taking up poker is a daunting challenge. So I don't see your characterization of GSiH usefulness as a challenge or roadmap. Just because you seem to have opened the door to other books, and a future involving lots of poker research and practice, I personally expect to be able to proceed beyond the level of practiced ignorance of the game so very many experienced, and unprofitable, poker players are at.

Strangely enough 2 of my sons took the electrical engineer/computer degree, and at the highly renowned UNM! The older then worked on the AT&T digital telephone problem, back when it was a problem, and got his masters in computer science. Mine was mechanical engineering, and then nuclear, and I took so much math that a small stream of it can be see trickling out of my ears (but you must look very closely, or you'll miss it!).

I aspire to playing NL HE tournaments. Seeing that on TV brought me to this decision, and how far I can go with poker is not predictable at present.

I hope that you'll consider internet poker as a thing to explore, simply because it's enormous in its present incarnation. I've seen you express more than once that internet poker might not be legal in the US at some point; having sold rare stamps on the internet I've had the same idea from time to time regarding retail sales there. Meanwhile the years are passing away.

Being an engineer with many mathematical inventions, consider that it's just loads of fun to do research, and poker offers many opportunities. Presently I'm practicing with 1/2 cents PokerStars NL HE poker. Some say it's so loose that it lacks usefulness, in terms of learning poker. I say it's harder than the more predictable $5/10 poker in certain respects, since at that level more players are actually knowledgable. Especially in late stages of NL HE tournaments, one must know how to play 32unsuited. So why not learn to play in a frequently loose environment?

By the way, do you believe your SSS can be used with 1/2 cents poker, where the minimum starting bankroll is 50 BBs?

I feel honored to have had a note from you! Keep up the great work...

Dave

[AKQJ10]

Congrats on luring Ed on here, Dave. /images/graemlins/smile.gif I suspect that you're much farther along than you think you are. Even on the points where I have significant disagreement with you (e.g. the other post about playing AQ), I think you're open to learning and in general have a good approach toward building your knowledge base. You'll smooth those rough edges pretty quickly.

Now I just have to decide whether to make my "Is GSIH's SSS thwarted by the Foxwoods time charge?" post here or on the Small Stakes NL forum. That question aside, I've really enjoyed GSIH and found it suprisingly useful for a moderately-experienced limit player. Maybe it helps that I've misplaced my copy of SSH. (Anyone wanna sell a used copy?)

[Student]

It gratifying that Ed is willing to work directly with the persons who are the object of GSiH, namely those on the 2+2 Beginners Forum! It could be said that Ed will continue to serve 2+2 Publishing very well, taking books they've published in the past and translating them into quasibeginner language. Its been done for computers at large, so they are now a commodity. They got that way because a whole bunch of people labored to insolate ordinary computer owners from necessary complexity that lurks inside the bowels of every computer. So it must be with poker.

50 million play poker in the US alone, and probably a third of a billion worldwide. "Ivan" lives in a small city in Siberia. Ivan is smart, very smart. Ivan is lead to poker by others, who train him to play poker very well. When Ivan is ready, Ivan joins a team from Russia, and they are all interested in just one thing: importing US dollars and converting them into ruples. This will be state-financed activity thruout the world, assuring internet poker endures and grows forever. So what if the US makes internet poker illegal? PokerStars is sending over 900 players to the World Series of Poker main event this year; PokerStars would go offshore, and the next year it might drop down to 500 players, but then they'd be on the build again...

A larger threat to internet poker is the presense of poker-playing robots, called bots, and also sites that gather statistics concerning individual players, and their playing habits. There is a site today that has statistics on 750,000 poker players, and as quickly as one plays on Party Poker and their affiliates (and this is just an opinion, as to scope!) comprehensive databases are updated for you. Defensive tactics are necessary, when one realizes anyone who is willing to pay the price can have stats on you, and have these stats provided on a basis that permits them to modify play in accordance with your weaknesses. Big Brother is watching (Orwell, 1984)!!!

Internet play provides data to every player that isn't available at B&M sites. What percentage of the players at each table are in the average pot, what is the average pot size, and what is the pace that hands are played? These stats are available when deciding which table to play at. This is meaningful, because sites like PokerStars will float 7,000 tables at any one time, all playing at about double the pace B&Ms play at. My guess is the total number of B&M tables in existance worldwide is less than the number of tables at PokerStars alone, not to mention that probably half of these B&Ms are inactive at any one point in time!

Why do I focus on the internet in my answer? Because Ed has reasserted his doubts about viability of internet poker, for the long haul. But internet poker operates over 3 orders of magnitude: 1/2 cents to 10/20 dollars (and beyond, at the high end). Two orders of magnitude separate the smallest stakes at internet vs B&Ms: 1/2 cents vs 1/2 dollars. The biggest games on B&Ms are extremely large; the smallest games on the internet are extremely small. The concept of BBs tends to equalize this huge space, but I contend that BBs at the 1/2 cents game differ from BBs at the low-stakes level, nominally 1/2 dollars thru 5/10 dollars. GSiH is concerned with stakes played between $1 and $10 (or so), but huge numbers of internet tables exist at levels that can be as much as a factor of 100 lower than for the cheapest level on B&Ms. Probably 95% of all internet games are for stakes below $1 (just another guess, like the one concerning numbers of poker tables, worldwide).

As for myself, poker is a giant puzzle and my job is to learn about each piece. It happens the puzzle gets larger and larger, as I learn. My hope is SSS will provide to me my first exposure to a consistent theory, involving a much smaller and more manageable puzzle. It's a joy for me to realize my next 30 or 40 years can be spent coming to grips with poker; where are my limits? I can be Student for the forseeable future; whoopeeeeeeee!

Dave