Introductions - New to the SS forum

[Scuba Chuck]

OK, I’m an NL SNG junkie. I 8 table the $33 and $55 buyins. I’ve played over 7,000 SNGs so far this year. I’ve made enough money to play much higher, but I don’t. Here’s why. I don’t think I know how to play poker. (Good that’s out of the way, as it’s hard to admit).

Well, I prolly know more than I’m admitting to, but I certainly would like to learn more postflop. I’ve been contemplating whether to play limit or NL ring games. And, well, I’m here. So you get to put up with me.

My Goals:
I want to learn to win at 30/60 online:
I want to learn how to play 6 max effectively:
I want to be competent enough to play 40/80 live in Vegas/LA/AC.
I want to be competent enough to play 20/40 live at Canterbury
I want to accomplish all this before my June 2006 Vegas Trip.

My Plan:
Along with a good friend, I plan to work through WLLH (3) & SSHE right away. I’m probably going to start at .50/1 or 1/2. I want to spend as much time studying as I intend to play in the beginning. I intend to learn how to use pokertracker, playerview (gametime). I will be posting hands, and asking questions on other’s posts.

After those two books are exhausted, I intend to move on to King Yao and HEFAP. If any of you have any other suggested reading, I’m very open minded. I have already read Hilger’s book, and I’m rereading it right now was I await our new books from Amazon (and expect a few Hilger related posts here soon). Hilger recommends Middle LHE by Ciaffone and Brier ~ any opinions?

My intent is to move up based on bankroll management. I’ve decided to seed my initial bankroll for this with $600.

My friend and I are going to get together periodically and play HU (hopefully weekly). My instincts tell me that a lot can be learned in this exercise. Any thoughts?

The most important part of the plan:
I intend to only one table for this entire venture. I very much regret my decisions to learn to multi-table, as my motivations were good at the time, I think it hindered my knowledge of the game. I could give a rat’s a$$ about rakeback. I think single-tabling will advance my ability to beat the higher limit games faster. My aim is to learn how to read opponents, learn terminology, how to use position, building pots, taking notes, snapping bluffs, when to bluff, when to fold, when to call vs raise. I’m sure there’s more, but that’s what came to mind at the moment.

Things you can help me with:
1) How do I use the HUSH forum?
2) What is the GENERAL Texas Hold’em Forum for?
3) What limits are considered Mid-High Stakes?
4) Is the B&M cardroom forum a non-strategy forum?
5) Opinions on who are the better posters in this forum?
6) Any opinions on my game plan?

Thanks in advance.

Good luck at the tables.
Scuba Chuck

[hobbsmann]

I'll offer up a few comments:

1) Book wise TOP of a definite read and very applicable to limit poker

2) Your goals seem very lofty, but doable given voracious study and just playing a ton of hands

3) The part about needing to play a ton of hands is really important IMO and I think you might want to reconsider your policy on multi-tabling. While you don't need to 4-table (2 tabling might be best) I feel like a lot of progress that are going to make is going to come from logging a huge number of hands. Of course it will be important to think critically throughout your movement up the limits getting in the hands might become the limiting factor on your learning if you are only playing 1 table.

4) The HUSH forum is very good and limited to shorted handed limit hold’em (6 handed or less). I would strongly recommend browsing it from time to time as concepts there will become important when learning how to play well around the blinds in the middle online limits (3/6-10/20).

Good luck and hopefully others will comment on some of the other things you have written.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
2) Your goals seem very lofty, but doable given voracious study and just playing a ton of hands

3) The part about needing to play a ton of hands is really important IMO and I think you might want to reconsider your policy on multi-tabling.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, let's talk. How many hands are we talking?

[ArturiusX]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
2) Your goals seem very lofty, but doable given voracious study and just playing a ton of hands

3) The part about needing to play a ton of hands is really important IMO and I think you might want to reconsider your policy on multi-tabling.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, let's talk. How many hands are we talking?

[/ QUOTE ]

200 000

[hobbsmann]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
2) Your goals seem very lofty, but doable given voracious study and just playing a ton of hands

3) The part about needing to play a ton of hands is really important IMO and I think you might want to reconsider your policy on multi-tabling.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, let's talk. How many hands are we talking?

[/ QUOTE ]

A specific number is very hard to come up with, but at least 100k.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, let's talk. How many hands are we talking?


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A specific number is very hard to come up with, but at least 100k.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you're saying the ability to move from 1/2 to 30/60 is 100,000 hands or more? So I'd need to average ~15,000 hands a month. That's gonna be difficult for me to do as I still intend to put in a minimum of 1k SNGs in. I was thinking more along the lines of 2,000 hands a month. Hmmmm.

[paperboyNC]

If you 4-table limit short-handed, particularly at high-speed tables on stars, you can get close to 500 hands per hour. Play for an hour a day and you have 15k hands per month.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
If you 4-table limit short-handed, particularly at high-speed tables on stars, you can get close to 500 hands per hour. Play for an hour a day and you have 15k hands per month.

[/ QUOTE ]

That sounds risky

[Harv72b]

I'll echo what hobbs said--while it's probably best to start out 1-tabling as you get a feel for LHE, you should be able to quickly adjust to 2-tabling and still have enough focus to learn the finer points of the game & take advantage of player-dependant reads. I often find myself bored & playing a side game of solitaire or something when I'm playing 2 tables, and I only 3-table normally.

Your goals are lofty but achievable, but would require a lot more than 2k hands/month to achieve by next summer. As far as the microlimits go (1/2 & below), it's pretty much more of the same as you move up from level to level...the only real difference is that the average player's VPIP drops by a few points. 2/4 isn't really a huge step either, but once you hit 3/6 & above, it generally takes a lot more than 2k hands just to adjust to the new level, let alone to master it. And strictly from a monetary standpoint, it would take you far more hands than that to build your bankroll to the point where you can play 30/60, assuming that you don't intend to keep pouring your SnG winnings into your LHE bankroll.

Personally, I think you'd be far better off to maintain the same final goals, but allot yourself quite a bit more time to achieve them. Put another way, I've been playing LHE seriously for over a year now, and based on my own feelings & some brief experience, think that I'm at best a break-even player at 15/30. I haven't even considered taking a shot at 30/60.

The books you listed, plus TOP, make for excellent reading & will give you all the book learning you need to succeed at LHE. But again, it takes tens of thousands of hands before you'll be able to fully understand (and take advantage of) those lessons--and that assumes that you have an excellent aptitude for the game. If LHE strategy doesn't come intuitively to you, then yes...you're looking at hundreds of thousands of hands.

For your specific questions:
1) I haven't used the HUSH forum (this could be why I suck at 6max). Some brief skimming through it from time to time suggested that it's pretty much the same as the SS forum, but limited to 6max (or fewer) hands.
2) Again, I've only looked over it a few times, but General Hold'Em is intended for overall strategy discussions. It looked like it's typically filled with beginner's questions about downswings, bankroll, and "am I a winning player?", though.
3) The intended use of the forums is 1/2 & below = micro limits, 2/4 through 5/10 = small stakes, and limits above 5/10 = mid/high stakes. But many regulars on this forum play above 5/10, and you'll often see 10/20 & above hands posted here.
4) I don't play B&M, but I have read that one a little more often than the other forums you mentioned. It seems like most of the discussion is centered on trip reports & general B&M questions (i.e., tipping, which establishments are best, what kind of rake to expect, etc).
5) If you understand what the poster is trying to tell you, that's a good poster. If you don't understand, ask--if they then explain it fully, that's a good poster.
6) Already covered. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Welcome to the forum...hope to see you more often. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

BTW...if this helps at all, I decided to learn Omaha Hi/Lo a couple of months ago. I've done basically what you're doing--set up a seed of $600 on one of my Party skin accounts, and played .50/1 & 1/2 O8 on there. I set aside one day each week in which I play O8 exclusively, and then if I finish up my LHE hands early & still have a hankering to play poker, I'll put in some "overtime" playing Omaha. I've found that this has worked well as far as learning the game & building confidence.

[Jake (The Snake)]

It's good that you seem genuinely interested in learning limit, and are willing to identify your weaknesses.

That being said, I think your goals are essentially impossible to achieve. As for the number of hands it will take to get to 30/60 playing from the micros, someone could probably come up with an exact number given WR, SD, etc but 200k seems low to me, especially for someone new to limit.

I'm not sure the degree to which luck plays a role in NL versus limit, but to give you an idea, the very best posters on this site have gone >50k at breakeven many many times.

Your book-reading plan seems very good.

You will get sick of one-tabling online. Especially at the lower limits. There will just be way too much downtime as the majority of your decisions will be easy.

Questions:

1. HUSH forum works same as here, post hands with 6 players or less. 6 max hands are also generally accepted here but are usually posted when they resemble small stakes games in some way.

2. Personal stories, challenges, events, sometimes theory, it's a weird forum. Just not hands.

3. 15/30 and above I think.

4. Yeah pretty much I believe.

5. This is subjective and rather difficult to deal with. Just try to see what arguments you agree with, the best posters tend to back up what they say logically. If you want specifics, feel free to pm me.