Experiences with Poker Academy

I'm posting this on both the 2+2 and the Poker Academy forums, since I'd like feedback from both communities.

I'm a green fish. I KNOW I'm a green fish. But I WANT to become a winning player. I'm studying several Hold'em books and I'm using Poker Academy Texas Hold'em as a trainer.

I downloaded Poker Academy Texas Hold'em about two months ago. Since then I've been trying to get in at least 100 hands a day. I play limit ring games exclusively. I'm trying to play tight/aggressive as shown in Lee Jones' Winning Low Limit Hold'em (I'll be picking up Small Staked Hold'em after my next read through Winning Low Limit Hold'em). I've got about 5000 hands played, and this is what I've noticed:

When I play Full Ring Beginners I get rolled over. Whenever I try to put a bot "on hand" I'm always wrong, and even when I have a great hand I end up getting out drawn. No one ever folds, the betting is capped at least once a hand and when I do make it so a showdown I get the weirdest bad beats. The Beginners are just too wild for me to win consistently at that table.

The Standard and Random tables are too tight for me to make money. The bots don't make too many mistakes. There never seems to be enough callers for me to play a drawing hand profitably. I can only rarely put a bot on hand. I win one hand in 40 or 50, but because the tables are so tight the pot is never big enough to cover the blinds plus the hands where I paid to see the Flop then folded. I end up loosing 2-4 big bets every 100 hands.

But then there's the Low Limit table. I seem to do OK there. I tend to be right when I put the bots on hand. There are usually enough callers for me to play drawing hands, and when I re-raise pre-flop with KK or QQ the bots seem to respect my projected strength and fold (like I WANT them to).

I've started a new profile and I'm using that profile to play Full Ring Low Limit $10/$20 games. When I get to 10,000 hands (about 3 months are 100 hands a night) I plan to import my sessions into Poker Tracker and see what I can see.

I guess what I'm wondering is, is what I'm experiencing typical? Do the rest of you find yourselves mind boggled by what happens at the beginner table? Are most of you able to regularly crush the game at Full Ring Standard? Do the rest of you find you can only make money playing Full Ring Low Limit?

I'd like the read about your experiences with Poker Academy as a Hold'em trainer.

Thanks,

phy

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Since then I've been trying to get in at least 100 hands a day.

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Dude, crank your delay settings (throttles) down. I can get through 100 hands in well under 10 minutes. Select Options->Edit Throttles, and crank the times way down (I set mine to zero). Also select the fast folds boxes so that it'll speed the action up when you fold.

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When I play Full Ring Beginners I get rolled over. Whenever I try to put a bot "on hand" I'm always wrong, and even when I have a great hand I end up getting out drawn. No one ever folds, the betting is capped at least once a hand and when I do make it so a showdown I get the weirdest bad beats. The Beginners are just too wild for me to win consistently at that table.

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You should be able to beat this table easily. You're probably playing too many hands, cold calling raises out of position too much, not folding enough when you should, and not raising at the right time. That's what I was doing when I first started with it. The wild games are where you make the most money, because that's where the 'bots make the most mistakes, and we profit off of others mistakes. Suck outs happen, and you'll go on losing streaks, but long term you'll come out way ahead if you play well. I was beating the beginners table for ~5BB/100 before I went on a -100BB downswing over 200 hands... Talk about some serious tilt [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] Still recovering from that so I'm down to ~3BB/100, and I'm not good at all compared to most players here, I'm still new myself.

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I end up loosing 2-4 big bets every 100 hands.

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That's nothing... You need to play far more hands than that . Like I said earlier, crank your settings down so you can get more hands in, and you'll see what I mean... When you put in 3-400 hands/session, you'll get a better feel for the variance you can go through. That's one of the things I like the most about academy: the better visibility you get into the what is variance and what is bad play.

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I guess what I'm wondering is, is what I'm experiencing typical? Do the rest of you find yourselves mind boggled by what happens at the beginner table? Are most of you able to regularly crush the game at Full Ring Standard? Do the rest of you find you can only make money playing Full Ring Low Limit?

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Typical for a beginner. You have a bunch of leaks that need to get plugged up, and you need experience. SSHE will help you identify strategy problems (raising/folding/hand selection), and academy will help prepare you tremendously for online play. I recommend, though, starting out at the lower limits. Alternate between the low-limit table, and random tables at .5/1 (that's probably where you'll be starting at when you play "for real"). Get used to that play first... Use it to learn and plug up leaks, and get used to playing against those loose players. The play in academy is very similar to online play, at least as far as suckouts go. Some of the 'bots can get pretty predictable, but you want experience playing at the tables where the pots get jammed preflop... There's a lot of money to be made there [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Once you can consistently beat that, you'll be in much better shape.

In general, I really like academy. I wish I had bought it first before playing with real money, as it's a great trainer that gives a "close" feel to the real thing. It would'v helped me identify my leaks very cheaply compared to online play. I can just about guarantee that if you can't beat academy, you won't beat real players [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Now that being said, just because you can beat PA doesn't mean you will be a winning player, but it is a great tool that helped me tremendously, and I still use for practice.

Pat,

I AM consistantly beating PA, but only when I play Low Limit.

When I play Random or Standard the table is too tight for me to make money, and when I play Beginner the play is too wild. It almost feels like knowing what I'm doing is a disadvantage on the Beginner table.

So you're saying I should be able to beat Standard tables and crush Beginner tables before I play for real money? [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Well, I'm commited to my 10k hand exparament. I'll keep playing the Low Limit table until I hit 5k hands. I'll read SSHE & 2+2. I'll regularly import my hands to PT and examin my play. If I'm still consistantly willing at the Low Limit table after 5k hands, then I'll start to alternate Standard and Beginner.

BTW, how would you rate each setting vs. on-line play?

Would you say that Beginner equates to the .05/.10 tables? Low Limit to the .50/$1 tables? Standard to the $3/$6?

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Would you say that Beginner equates to the .05/.10 tables? Low Limit to the .50/$1 tables? Standard to the $3/$6?

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I'd like to know this also.

Regards,
Ian

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When I play Random or Standard the table is too tight for me to make money

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I really think the low-limit table is a little too loose and a bit more aggressive than I typically see. But anyhow, I really like the random table the most because it's different everytime. It's really easy to make money there over the long haul, but it's not uncommon to go 200-400 (or more) hands running at just about break-even (up a little, down a little, etc...). But eventually you'll get some good cards and get ahead. However, if you don't play well consistently, that money will quickly be lost [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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and when I play Beginner the play is too wild.

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That's where you should be making easy money, and you'll find a lot of tables like this online... There's some good posts in the micro-limit forum that talk about this very topic. Go in there and read the digests and faqs. They'll help you out.

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So you're saying I should be able to beat Standard tables and crush Beginner tables before I play for real money?

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You should be able to win consistently if you expect to win online. The beginners table in academy plays with undaptive bots that just play as programmed, and you'll run into plenty of them online. You should be able to recognize their patterns and beat them fairly easily, same as the random, standard, and advanced. Like I said before, academy is a great training tool. It'll prepare you as well as anything can for the real thing, but it's not the real thing, and I guess that is one drawback against PA: it could get you used to playing against 'bots [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] However, if you can't beat the training tool, do you think it's reasonable to expect to beat the real thing?

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BTW, how would you rate each setting vs. on-line play?

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Gosh, that's tough to say.... At .50/1 you'll see a lot of play similar to what you'll see at those settings online. But the 'bots are still that: robots. They will make play similar to what you see online (the patented "slow play the set" and A-rag play), but you'll also see some "stupid" moves on their part as well... So like I said, it's tough to say.

The real value is in teaching you strategy and hand selection, as well as giving you experience for a cheap price (free!). It'll help you develop a good feel for what cards are good in different situations, and understand the value of each preflop...

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Would you say that Beginner equates to the .05/.10 tables? Low Limit to the .50/$1 tables? Standard to the $3/$6?

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I think that's a little simplistic. You can actually run into some good players at .05/.10 (some of the guys from the micro-limits forum play there for learning). Those settings are really the "mix" or "type" of players at a give limit. As you increase the limit (from .5/1 to $1/$2) etc, you'll run into better 'bots regardless. I guess what I'm saying is that at any given time, running into any of those players online is a possibility at any limit. I like to play random and standard settings the most, as I think that over the long haul (many games) that's what online play is like on average.

Just a little nitpick on you Pat. As you increase the limits in Academy, the bots do not get better.

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Just a little nitpick on you Pat. As you increase the limits in Academy, the bots do not get better.

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That's what I thought. That's why I just always play $10/$20 games.

Huh, you're right... Felt to me like they played better at higher limits, but it makes no difference...

Here's the link to the developers forum talking about it"
http://www.poki-poker.com/forums/viewtop...76d859dbde0bd72