Move to $1/2 level ?

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As for questioning my skill, my win rate at 1/2 was over 6BB/100 hands. Question away.

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And how does this disprove my argument that people who use datamining as a crutch to support large win rates might not be as skilled at poker as their numbers suggest?

You got a big penis, drive a nice sports car, have a swimsuit model girlfriend, and a job that pays 200k+ a year too I bet.

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Umm guys, we are talking about beating 1/2 here. Anyone that is not retarded can do that, so I think we can save the discussions of "skill".

Marat,
I've recently moved to Party 1/2 (within last 10 days), and have logged over 3k hands there while 3-4 tabling. The two levels play very differently IMO. 1/2 is still beatable. I'm slightly ahead after 3k hands and should be way ahead but I've missed tons of monster draws thusfar.

It will take a while to get used to $28 pots instead of $14 pots or whatever, but all the principles are the same. Once you forget that sometimes you'll spend $8 just to see the river, I think you will play a lot better.

The major differences I've noticed (as opposed to .5/1) are

1) More 3-betting and capping PF.
2) Less likely to get into pot cheap with suited aces.
In other words, I made a killing of nut flushes at .5/1 and don't seem to get to play A3suited as much anymore b/c of PF raising.
3) Much more flop check-raising. This is either somebody protecting top pair, or someone going for a free river card. Don't be intimidated.

How many tables do you play? When I made the transition I was playing 3 tables of 1/2 and 2 tables of .5/1 to lessen the variance. Try to ease into the new level. If you play 4-tables, then try 3/1 or 2/2. I thought this would be confusing playing intra-level, but it really wasn't. Within a week I was (am) 4-tabling strictly 1/2 now.

Good luck. Hope to see you at my table.

[beaster]

Dudes, I feel your pain. I'm at 31k hands with a 1BB/100 winrate, and I'm also at the bottom of a 150BB slide. Yeah so bonuses help soften the bankroll blow. But bonuses dont do much for my desire to be a winning player.

After being at ~2BB/100 at 20k hands, I'm glad I put more time into 1/2. Here's what I've been doing to try and get better:

-- Gain perspective. Look at graphs from your current level or other levels that you beat. Have you gone through this before? Did you come back to "beat" the level? Losing can take its toll on you mentally. When you feel beat down, you're more likely to make desparate/wrong plays -- hoping that you too can pull a longshot draw out of your arse.

-- Take the grunch/wookie challege. Open up a hand post, close it up by clicking on 'threaded' (so you can't see other responses), read it and respond. Think about all streets and all of the fundamentals that come into play at each round. Too often in the heat of battle at the table you're rushing to make a decision. Read hand posts and think through them at your own pace, then respond. Take your time to analyze the hand -- as the fundamentals are used over and over, they will begin popping into your mind more frequently when you have to make quicker decisions (a side-effect of multi-tabling).

-- Play tighter. Quit calling small pocket pairs and A2s through A8s in middle position.

-- Play straight up. With marginal hands, unless you are positive you have your opponent beat, don't push. Many times I thought I could push someone out of a pot by being aggressive with a ragged board. For example, the board comes Q92 and I'm holding 88, early, heads up. I usually get shown top or middle pair.

-- Respect position. Understand when you are advantaged and disadvantaged. If you are early and the flop misses you, count your pot odds (along with guesstimating your implied) and call/fold accordingly. Don't get carried away in late position if your previous opponents have checked to you and you have a marginal hand.

After 30k hands, I now realize crafty play is not well rewarded. Focus on correct play.

[adsman]

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Where did I say party in my post? I play on several sites, I can do this on most. Some sites that I can do it on, (like absolute) I don't as there's only a few tables.

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It was implied becuase alot of the other sites dont have a combination of ability to datamine and a plethora of 1/2 tables that you have the ability to just wait around for a specific seat.


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As for questioning my skill, my win rate at 1/2 was over 6BB/100 hands. Question away.

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And how does this disprove my argument that people who use datamining as a crutch to support large win rates might not be as skilled at poker as their numbers suggest?

You got a big penis, drive a nice sports car, have a swimsuit model girlfriend, and a job that pays 200k+ a year too I bet.

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I'll put this as nicely as I can.

You're a dickhead, mate.

[kiemo]

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Umm guys, we are talking about beating 1/2 here. Anyone that is not retarded can do that, so I think we can save the discussions of "skill".

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I think this is 100% wrong and alot of posts in this thread example it.

1/2 might be a micro limit online and for good-expert players it might be very easy to beat, but it still requires some amount of poker knowlege - i.e. skill, to be a long term winner at it. You cant just nut peddle your way to a 3bb/100 winrate like you can at the lower limits.

Using position, player reads, table selection, seat selection, stealing blinds, defending blinds, and putting players on ranges, are skills that start becoming important at 1/2. You know about skills at .5/1 and lower but you simply dont use them alot becuase you can crush those limits without these skills. At 1/2 I dont think this is the case.

[Fryguy]

I had a similar thing happen to me. I stuck it out, and proceeded to fly through 1/2 and jump right into 2/4 and 3/6 games, which aren't harder, you just make more money.

Get a sufficient bankroll and stick it out.

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Hi all,

I'm playing at $0.5/1 level and I winning 3.1BB/100 hands (after 16000 hands).Now I tried move to $1/2 level, where I was destroyed. Back to $0.5/1, recovered losses, move to $1/2 and situation repeated. Players reraised me with 24o and rivered out my flopped sets, top pairs lost to runner, runner two bottom pairs, etc.

My question is:

Is level $1/2 that much different from $0.5/1 level??? I never saw that much maniacs at $0.5/1 as at $1/2! When I raise and reraise preflop I have least four callers.When I bet the flop and I don't have NUTS, I am death.

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Umm guys, we are talking about beating 1/2 here. Anyone that is not retarded can do that, so I think we can save the discussions of "skill".

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I think this is 100% wrong and alot of posts in this thread example it.

1/2 might be a micro limit online and for good-expert players it might be very easy to beat, but it still requires some amount of poker knowlege - i.e. skill, to be a long term winner at it. You cant just nut peddle your way to a 3bb/100 winrate like you can at the lower limits.

Using position, player reads, table selection, seat selection, stealing blinds, defending blinds, and putting players on ranges, are skills that start becoming important at 1/2. You know about skills at .5/1 and lower but you simply dont use them alot becuase you can crush those limits without these skills. At 1/2 I dont think this is the case.

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I guess we have a different definition of "skill". I'm just tired of all these posts by people that think they're the greatest player ever b/c they have a decent winrate at 1/2.

[kiemo]

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I'll put this as nicely as I can.

You're a dickhead, mate.

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Yeah and my winrate is only 1.7 bb/100 at 1/2, so I cant even fall back on that like you can.

And I must ask this now since I forgot before.

You datamine to determine the best table and the best seat and refuse to sit down until you get the exact spot you want.

And now you got the perfect seat. Bad player or two to left, good players to right. perfect position. Except 3 hands into the table, the bad players leave, replaced by other players you have no datamined hands (OMG UNKNOWN PLAYER - RUN FOR THE HILLS). What now? leave the table to find another perfect seat.

And what happens if you sit a table you so determinely datamined, so all the little PokerWhatever numbers show up for you and you can easily watch porn instead of the table and still have reads on the players, and the table turns over quickly and now you have no information whatsoever? Bet you leave that table immediately, because your winrate might dip a little below 6bb/100 if you suddenly find yourself playing against a bunch of unknowns.

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The absolute dollar amount that I had lost was psychologically painful. Turns out that in terms of the actual number of BBs, my downswing at 1/2 was similar to other downswings that I've gone through in .50/1.


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This is definitely correct for most people I think. Did you try mixing in a couple .5/1 tables while playing a couple 1/2 tables? Forget about the money you are spending and look at the bets.

I did this and after a while of knowing that the big bet at .5/1 was "nothing" compared to 1/2, I started relaxing and I think it sort of began to go the other way where I'd play a hand at 1/2 and "forget" that it was the "higher level" and just play the damn hand.

I've only logged a few thousand hands at 1/2 but I think I'm almost over this. It does take some getting used to when you are 4-tabling and down 5 BB's at each table and look at your BR and it's down $40! lol.

The good news is that the transition from 2/4 to 3/6 is only a 50% increase. And 3/6 to 4/8 is only 33%.

I'm not looking forward to jumpiing up to 2/4 and having to get used to bigger pots again though.

Good luck.

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I'll put this as nicely as I can.

You're a dickhead, mate.

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Yeah and my winrate is only 1.7 bb/100 at 1/2, so I cant even fall back on that like you can.

And I must ask this now since I forgot before.

You datamine to determine the best table and the best seat and refuse to sit down until you get the exact spot you want.

And now you got the perfect seat. Bad player or two to left, good players to right. perfect position. Except 3 hands into the table, the bad players leave, replaced by other players you have no datamined hands (OMG UNKNOWN PLAYER - RUN FOR THE HILLS). What now? leave the table to find another perfect seat.

And what happens if you sit a table you so determinely datamined, so all the little PokerWhatever numbers show up for you and you can easily watch porn instead of the table and still have reads on the players, and the table turns over quickly and now you have no information whatsoever? Bet you leave that table immediately, because your winrate might dip a little below 6bb/100 if you suddenly find yourself playing against a bunch of unknowns.

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Adsman took the time to write a nice post about how he table selects. For some reason you have a huge chip on your shoulder about this and wrote the following:

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You do realize that not everyone is playing on Party and on basically every other site out there your method will indeed involve hours of waiting.

Plus I question the skill of any player who relies on datamining this much to get a good win rate. And again how many sites other then Party allow datamining?

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Seriously WTF man? If you are not able to datamine at the site you play, that is fine, some of the site I play on I can't either. But if you can it's going to improve the amount of $$$ you make if you use it correctly.

But what I really don't understand is why you felt the need to attack Adsman's "skill", just b/c he chooses to datamine and you don't.

FWIW, I play at 1/2 on Party and I don't do extensive datamining, but I do "head for the hills" if the table gets bad. Table selection is EXTREMELY important if you want to beat the games for a good winrates. The rake is brutal at 1/2 (like 3BB/100) so how do you think you beat the game for an additional 3BB/100, by outplaying other good players? No, by finding the worst players you can and taking advantage of the gigantic mistakes that they make.