As a broke "pro" which game would you play...? (some stats)

[Nietzsche]

[ QUOTE ]
But if I can 10 table 5/10

[/ QUOTE ]
Are you serious? 6 max?

[Megenoita]

Yes. I have a Dell 9300 17'' and an external monitor. Two tables are slightly covered. But at 5/10 at Party now, there are so many good tables. I really do 10 tables most of the time, and it goes down to 9 and 8. I've been averaging 830 hands an hour. I've had a 2+2er complain that I take too much time at the tables. I'm not sure if this will last, but it's fun trying.

[goofball]

Play 3/6, build up a roll, fix your shania, get confidence.

Move up to 5/10 when you have around 4k I would say. Rinse repeat. Yes you want to be consistently making money, but you want to be making as much money as possible and not playing in games you're either under or over rolled for. Moving up when you hit around 400 BBs for the next level is reasonable and logging 7500 hands a week it shouldn't take you too long. Don't worry about feeling like a tool playing 3/6, just play it. Being a tool who's winning at 3/6 is way better than being a non-too breaking even or losing or feeling constantly stressed abotu your ROR somewheer higher.

[TStoneMBD]

if you think that you can earn more money at 10/20 then 5/10 you should take a 30BB shot with your roll. there is nothing wrong with 30BB shots. thats well more than enough. this doesnt mean that whenever you hit a 30BB downswing you quit the limit. it means that whenever you go 30BBs below 0 you drop levels.

move up in limits with money that you can afford to lose. if losing $600 versus $300 matters to you then you shouldnt do it. i say 600 vs 300 because a 30BB downswing at 5/10 would be 300, so the difference is only $300.

[Nigel]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes. I have a Dell 9300 17'' and an external monitor. Two tables are slightly covered. But at 5/10 at Party now, there are so many good tables. I really do 10 tables most of the time, and it goes down to 9 and 8. I've been averaging 830 hands an hour. I've had a 2+2er complain that I take too much time at the tables. I'm not sure if this will last, but it's fun trying.

[/ QUOTE ]

Impressive. A few questions if you don't mind sharing.

How big a sample size are you earning 1BB/100 over while 10 tabling?

What kind of swings are you seeing with that low a WR?

What are your basic PT stats? I would imagine you would have to play pretty tight to avoid being in 7-8 hands at a time.

Thanks,

Nigel

[helpmeout]

[ QUOTE ]
I've recently gotten tired of playing underrolled and dealing with stress of swings. I spent a lot of money recently on wedding stuff, a nice honeymoon, furniture, as well as ran bad at 30/60 a couple months ago and crippled my roll... I want to start treating poker like a "real job" where [hours = money] and get on with enjoying the other parts of my life.

[/ QUOTE ]

This kind of stupidity will not result in a successful poker career.

15 hours a week and a $2800 roll lol thats just rediculous.

Poker is not like a job you do need to study a lot, you also need a large buffer. 15 hours a week doesnt cut it, I'm sure a lot of people spend more time than that just reading 2+2, analyzing their play and reading books.

I dont know what kind of fantasy life you have got planned but its not gonna work, even devoting 30 hours a week for poker is not really enough until you are an established high limit winner with a monster roll.

[TStoneMBD]

wow, i didnt even see him say this. 830 hands an hour holy [censored]. impressive man.

i dont mean to come off as arrogant when i say this, but as someone who has spent a good amount of time at lower limits putting in alot of hours 8tabling, id recommend that you take it down a notch. i burnt out. i dont know if it will happen to you but if youre good enough to beat the game playing that many tables you should be good enough to beat higher games. when i first started playing internet poker i was 8tabling 3/6 for 160 hours a month with back to back months. i ended up taking a 2 month break because the time i put in stressed me out too much. god, i wish i saved those long hours of 8tabling for the limits im at now or soon to be at. id love to put in 160 hours now.

[TStoneMBD]

helpmeout, im someone who has trouble putting in the hours. this is probably my hugest weakness right now and i wish i could fix it. fortunately, i spend my time improving my game instead of playing and as a result im able to make a great living with the little amount of hours i actually put in. i struggle to put in 100 hour months and have to force myself to and often fail. schneids only puts 60 hours a month but of course he plays higher limits as you say. i wouldnt consider the limits im playing at to be high, but if im beating the game longterm the way i hope i will, 60 hours a month is more than enough for me to make a great living.

the only reason why i say this is because i dont think its necessary for people to grind out hours like crazy people. its more important to improve your play. a great man once said, if youre going to spend an hour chopping down a tree you need to spend 40 minutes sharpening the blade.

i dont think its really reasonable to ask someone to put in 120+ hours a month and really dedicate themselves to improving at the same time. i think climber should do what he needs to do to survive his financial problems right now, maybe trying to build a comfort shield for him. however, rather than grind out a zillion hours at the level hes at now he should wait until hes making big money in poker, which shouldnt be hard if he dedicates his time to improving and NOT playing.

$2800 bankroll is a serious concern for him if thats all the money is has. i would say get a job but thats no solution to his problem. he could build his roll back at 3/6 or 5/10. i dont think its necessary for a good player to have a huge roll to make it in online poker these days. the ROI of a good poker player is fantastic. i think climber should be trying to become the type of player that doesnt need a huge bankroll to succeed because hell be able to make that huge bankroll in a short period of time when he reaches a level of skill dictated by the effort hes put forth to improve.

i say this to anyone reading, if youre struggling to make good money in poker and dont have the dedication to really learn everything you can, poker is not for you. find something you can dedicate yourself to instead. i may not be dedicated to putting in hours, but i am greatful that i am dedicated to improving my play, otherwise i wouldnt be in the fortunate situation i am in now. if my motives were reversed and i was dedicated to playing and not improving i would probably be 8tabling 1/2 barely surviving off rakeback or i would be doing something else right now.

[helpmeout]

You and schneids arent playing 3/6 you both also have significant poker experience.

There is also a big difference between devoting 15 hours to poker and playing 15 hours.

I dont play all that much, probably 600-800 hands a day on average but a lot of the time is waiting for good games and also studying.

Also to expect to grind out $2k a month out of a $2800 roll at low limits devoting only 15 hours a week is totally unrealistic.

If I had $2800 and had to pay bills I'd be so stressed I'd have gone bust and so would many people, it simply is not enough.

[TStoneMBD]

a poster on this forum emailed me a really flattering letter based on my comments in this thread, i replied back trying to offer some insight on what he was looking for and i figured i should include my message to him in this thread. i dont know if my thoughts will help anyone, but if they do i dont think i should deprive you guys of them. here is my reply:

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its hard to tell people how to improve in poker. everyone improves differently and some people improve faster than others. sometimes we hit plateaus and sometimes we hit slopes. for a while i hit a plateau and was very discouraged. i didnt really know where to go from there and didnt feel like i was learning alot even though i was trying very hard. i took a break from playing poker and came back to playing after 2 months. i still have trouble putting in hours but im so greatful that right now i feel like i have so much to learn. i see alot of things that i dont understand. i see alot of things that twoplustwo doesnt understand either. alot of it has to do with probability and frequencies. i dont understand alot of it and when a situation arises that involves one of those it takes me a long time to figure out the correct line because im not very good at math. an example of this would be the krishan thread about him having a set.

i think its important for a player dedicated to learning to find new situations that he is unfamiliar with. if youre thinking about situations that arent new to you on a regular basis you wont progress very well. it can be hard to find new situations though. i think a major problem with twoplustwo is that alot of the time ill see a thread where the decision is so close that even a very good poster says something like "its so close it doesnt even matter. this wont affect your winrate, lets talk about something else." i think thats a huge problem. we need to work out the very close situations because when you reach a certain level of competition the play advances to where most people understand the obvious situations of postflop play, but most people dont understand the very close situations. they say its so close that it doesnt matter anyway so that leak remains to leak.

if you spend the time to work out close situations, ones that take you forever to figure out, not only will you see alot of other close situations become much more clear, youll expand your mind and find areas in your game that you need to improve on.

alot of people are unsure about how to solve such close situations, and thats just normal. if they seem so close it means that you dont know how to solve it. i think in alot of these close situations it comes down to assigning hand ranges to opponents, estimating your pot equity and estimating your opponents reaction to your line. again, the krishan set hand examples this line of thought.

in my own quest for improvement im trying to work out alot of problems through that formula by making estimations and working out the problem ahead of time. i think frequencies apply most of all to blind situations where we could all certainly improve. there is so much we dont understand about playing in the blinds. i believe that at higher limits most of the money won and lost comes from expert blind play. i have a long way to go.