Becoming a student of the game (double post)

[Smokey98]

I just finished reading "Inside the Poker Mind" and I'm very excited about becoming a so called student. I want to put together a "structure" to follow. I want to become a student in the true since of the word just as Feeny suggest in his book. I've been playing for about a year, mostly online at the 2/4 level. I'm barely a winning player. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

2/4 is a big level to start at. If your not rich, I bet playing cheaper games would allow you to play more and hence learn more.

[Smokey98]

Wow, your very first post is to give me advice? Thanks, you've made me especially honored.

I didn't say I was starting at 2/4. I started at micro-limits and worked my way up. Go back and read my post. I've been playing for a year now and I'm currently playing at 2/4 mostly and 3/6 sporadically with confidence. I've played the 5/10 occasionally just to get a feel for it and I'm not ready for that level, although I didn't loose my shirt. I just don't feel ready at that level yet. The only thing keeping me back from being a good to semi-great player is my tendencies to tilt and or loosen up my play after bad beats or just being tired. I’m working on those aspects of my game.

I'm making a pledge to myself to structure my study of the game and then just go at it, hence my request for advice. I'm wondering if anyone has a journal or an "outline" to go by. Or just any advice would be good. My BR is at $1350 so I'm ok there.

A little bit about where I stand. I’ve played just over 115k hands. I’ve read TOP, SSHE twice, HEFAP twice, Winning Low-Limit Hold'em, and Inside the Poker Mind and various other essays on HE. My BB/100 stands at 1.46. I’ve noticed that if I block out my sessions that are past 8pm my time my BB/100 goes up to 2.41. Anyway, any help is coo!

[Colonel Kataffy]

[ QUOTE ]
I’ve read TOP, SSHE twice, HEFAP twice

[/ QUOTE ]

Really, this is all you need. bookwise. Keep reading till you know them inside and out. More importantly read posts. Go through your hand histories, look for hands that you weren't sure of. Read through your books and see if you can find the answers to the questions these hands posed. If not, post them here.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
I didn't say I was starting at 2/4. I started at micro-limits and worked my way up. Go back and read my post. I've been playing for a year now and I'm currently playing at 2/4 mostly and 3/6 sporadically with confidence.

[/ QUOTE ]

Intuitively, it sounds like you're moving up too fast. I would have to know how many hours you're playing -- perhaps you play poker 140 hours a week or something, and my intuition is calibrated to 20 hrs/week or so, in which case I'm underestimating your requirements to move up by a factor of seven.

What criterion are you using to move up? How big a sample do you require to know you're not just running good?

[jb9]

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Intuitively, it sounds like you're moving up too fast.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't think moving up to 2/4 in a year is too fast. If you have the $$$, I don't see a problem with starting at 2/4...

[AKQJ10]

My verdict of "too fast" was a bit sloppy. You're right: if you're Andy Beal (http://poker.wikicities.com/wiki/Andy_Beal), starting at the Bellagio $80-$160 may not be "too fast" -- not because you expect to beat that game the first time, but because you're exchanging a plentiful resource to you (US dollars) for a less-plentiful resource (excitement). So I'll state the assumption that the OP is seeking to maximize dollar return, not some other "quality of life" factor, although those should be considered in most long-term poker related decisions too!

Moving up to $2/4 within a year might be too fast, though, if the OP doesn't want to play at any level* until he's relatively certain he's beaten the next-lower level.

*except of course the lowest micro-limit.

[SheridanCat]

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Wow, your very first post is to give me advice? Thanks, you've made me especially honored.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you want to be a true student of the game, you need to leave your ego aside and listen to advice when offered. You can accept or reject the advice, but think about it before doing so.

Ego and poker do not go together. That's one lesson to take from Feeney's book.

[ QUOTE ]

I didn't say I was starting at 2/4. I started at micro-limits and worked my way up. Go back and read my post. I've been playing for a year now and I'm currently playing at 2/4 mostly and 3/6 sporadically with confidence.


[/ QUOTE ]

I would suggest, as you study, that you do not remain at 2/4 and 3/6. Most of us have experienced an interesting side effect of study. After we start studying something new - probably something we never thought about before - we experience a painful losing streak.

This is a natural by-product of learning. It's a dialectic, if you will: read, try, fail, reread and start to really understand it, try, fail less, reread and talk about it with someone, try, succeed. Sometimes there will be more or fewer retries.

I don't have a syllabus for you. You might talk to the poster here named "Student" - he's thought a lot about how to study the game.

Regards,

T

[Smokey98]

I think I'm just going to stop asking questions here. AKQJ10, what the hell are you talking about? You obviously do not care to answer my question. If I need your advice on which level to play, trust me I will come a call'n. But to answer your question, I "usually" play about 20-25 hours a week. I never mentioned anything about moving up limits.

SheridanCat, there was no ego in my 2nd post. Why is this guy assuming that I'm just starting out? Plus he didn't even catch the part of my OP that said that I've been playing for a year and it was his 1st post. I was looking for some advice, if you can't offer any "for my actual question", then please don't reply.

SheridanCat, thank you for at least leading me to another poster.

[SheridanCat]

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I think I'm just going to stop asking questions here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps that would be best, yes.

[ QUOTE ]

SheridanCat, there was no ego in my 2nd post.


[/ QUOTE ]

Being insulted when someone offers you advice is the result of ego - maybe you feel you're being condescended to. Furthermore, I offered you two lessons in my reply, but you don't seem too interested in those.

So, read Student's posts and the replies to those. The best study outside reading the books - which it sounds like you have pretty well covered - is to read the forums here that cover the topics you're interested in.

Good luck,

T

[TaoTe]

[ QUOTE ]
My verdict of "too fast" was a bit sloppy. You're right: if you're Andy Beal (http://poker.wikicities.com/wiki/Andy_Beal), starting at the Bellagio $80-$160 may not be "too fast" -- not because you expect to beat that game the first time, but because you're exchanging a plentiful resource to you (US dollars) for a less-plentiful resource (excitement). So I'll state the assumption that the OP is seeking to maximize dollar return, not some other "quality of life" factor, although those should be considered in most long-term poker related decisions too!

Moving up to $2/4 within a year might be too fast, though, if the OP doesn't want to play at any level* until he's relatively certain he's beaten the next-lower level.

*except of course the lowest micro-limit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you ever read The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King? Great insight into the Big Game and its players. Discuss! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Pov]

[ QUOTE ]
. . . The only thing keeping me back from being a good to semi-great player is my tendencies to tilt and or loosen up my play after bad beats or just being tired . . .

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, for someone who supposedly wants to be a "student of the game" you have taken the exact opposite approach.

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I’m working on those aspects of my game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Keep trying. Your responses here would have allowed me to predict you have tilt problems with great certainty. Your aggressive defensiveness is not an asset in poker nor in life. You will not experience a high degree of success unless you can learn to alter this aspect of your personality.

You came asking for help. All the responses you got sound like people who were trying to help you. They spent their time and went out on a limb to offer advice. You should be thanking them, even if you aren't going to take their advice.

[Smokey98]

Ok, thanks!

No seriously, I do appreciate your laterally helping me. You’re willing to at least do that. I was just looking for answer to a very specific question. Sorry for the attitude.

[Student]

The tradeoff of dollars vs excitement isn't the only one involved, for the poker student. One who is also functioning as student is also willing to tradeoff both dollars and excitement, in favor of learning experiences. It's called delayed gratification, as opposed to instant gratification that is so much a part of modern life! A campaign directed on the part of the student to result in an increase in BBs/100 from 1.3 to 1.6, is an increase expected to benefit his game permanently thereafter, and is justified provided this campaign has a reasonable time frame, in itself. Otherwise, it's just scholarship for scholarship sake, a trap I've been guilty of myself!

Hence, even though the student has brought his game all the way up to $2/4, having started at nano-limits, in the interest of studying a certain factor in his game the student might easily enough go back to nano-limits for the purpose. Take the heat off, so the new proposition can be explored, without regard to fear of loss.

The great players have taken this sort of leave from their play of poker again and again, yet they are also the folks who have an ability to figure out some interesting and useful experiments, regarding poker. We have reached our limit when we know the answer to all the questions, and are aware of no other questions that might yield to inquiry. Our imagination is exhausted. This is an excellent time to come to 2+2 to ask others for new research topics! Our impasse occurs not because we truly know it all, but simply because we don't know that we don't know, and only an outsider can come to our rescue.

Dave

[Student]

[ QUOTE ]
The only thing keeping me back from being a good to semi-great player is my tendencies to tilt and or loosen up my play after bad beats or just being tired.

[/ QUOTE ]
Amen to that! Being 67 years old and having neglected physical conditioning for about the last 7 years, I was wide-open to tilt and the affects of tiredness, when I attempted to play 350 hands per day (single table) for 2 days in a row.

I've last over 40 pounds since midFeb, and this has improved my stamina, and the last month I've focused on cutting wood and moving dirt by wheelbarrow, to get my body back in shape. Doyle Brunson was quoted as saying something to the effect that the World Series of Poker was a physical grind for him (71 years old).

One doesn't have to be old to get mentally tired.

How might we approach this? We should certainly begin to take measurements. For me, given my experiences, I would start to record info about my mental tiredness after I've played 200 hands. Or I might record starting immediately, if last night wasn't a good sleeping night! What would we record? Perhaps a viewer could recommend a cheap and simple test, possibly modeled after self-administered tests one takes before the car will start, to prevent drunk driving.

Another approach would be to require of oneself taking leave of the table from time-to-time, simply to think about our state of readiness for further play. Possibly, after losing X BBs in a single hand, we would go on Observe-Only (OO) status for one round. So we are hunting for an automatic procedure; do OO so we don't become a great big 0 (zero)!

I hope this helps...

Dave

[Smokey98]

Thank you Student, I needed that. That is type of well thought out responses that we need more of here.

[aargh57]

Just a few thoughts on this whole "don't move up too fast" thing.

I actually started at the $1/2 tables on Pacific, built my bankroll up pretty fast and am now playing $2/4 but my winrate now sucks. However, by playing bonuses and multitabling I make a pretty decent profit. If I were to move down to the .5/1 tables I would cut my profits in half even if my win rate was higher. It just seems to me that some of you are holding yourselves back.

AKQJT seems to know quite a lot more about the game than I do and I think he still plays the lower limits. Why not move up? This guy's got over 100k hands and is still beating the game for over 1bb/100. Even if he only plays 2 tables he's still gonna make about $10/hr + bonuses and/or rakeback. Also, his bonuses are gonna clear quicker because of his higher limits.

Having said that, Student's post about learning the game does make sense. However, can't you learn the game and play the higher levels too? I'm not talking about playing above your bankroll here, but if you have the $$$ why not move up?

Having said all that, I hold POV, SheridanCat, and AKQJT in the highest regard. These guys are here giving good advice to beninners and you get upset when you get criticized by them.