BW to poker - difference and how to make money?

I and probably many on this forum can relate starting out with bw and the micros.

Your view of poker seems to be bad, do not go the same route as many BW players and try to masstable, when learning the game it is more useful to start out with 2 or 3 tables, even 3 might be too much for a beginner when every decision is a new one.

You are saying that you can't scout? well you can, look at hands that go to showdown this is critical for understanding player types. Without a hud it's harder to tell how someone is playing preflop, but huds can harm players for postflop stats who rely too heavily on them even with 1k hands postflop stats can be off especially obscure ones, so be careful, but definitely get a hud eventually. A hud doesn't tell you what to do it's not that powerful even understanding the stats can be a problem, if someone is tight then they should have higher frequencies etc.

Other than that you should watch videos, without watching videos and reading strategy you won't get anywhere, at this point most of your time should be spent on that. Other ways to have an edge is tilt control, bankroll management (so you don't tilt), getting healthy etc.

The thingy you were writing about the 3b, and stuff, is all poop. And it's not helping you in the slightest!

I think to become really good at poker, you need to study or play an insane amount, maybe 3-4000 hours within a few years, and you need to learn to use hud properly, and get in lots of hands. No short cut, no easy money!!

For insane, if someone 3b, after an opener, it all depends on the stats of the players who opened, if the guy who opened first is a massive fish, like playing 60% of hands from any position, now the re raise, can be really wide to, so then you look at who is doing the re raise, if that guy 3b a ton, now he has a wide range, how wide? You just put in the range he 3b in pokerstove, equilab, or some similar program, + if he's a regular, he's probably even wider here, since it's a fish, and good players know all these ranges intuitively, and can put ppl on a range more accurately in all these spots.

Also the most important part of poker for a beginner is probably the parts that happens the most frequent, in nl, preflop, cbetting, and stuff like that.

Most ppl who are just mediocre, online, know most of the normal stuff, how often ppl hit a flop, hu, which boards hit lots of combinations, which hits few, also with huds, lets you know how wide you can open from late position, so forth, the things im saying now is just a couple of things, and it's basic, most good players knows hundreds of these, and they dont even think about it, since it's basic, their brain is thinking bout more difficult stuff, or important stuff, which hasn't been ingrained.

So best tip I have, is study like a motherfucker, and put in tons of time and volume!! lol

you dont need to play an insane amount of poker in order to be good like marius said, knowing the right methodology and doing the right things you can be good in a year or so, I know a lot of examples
first thing I guess u should try to get a good network with people who plays the same stakes as u, study group or something like that

and my best advice is:
dont try to play poker to make money, going to be a stressful experience for you
even if you playing for money, try to trick your brain and try to play to be a good player

so I definitely need to use a HUD?
I really hope it doesnt take a year lol, I dont have a year to waste money experimenting
what about $/hour expectations?

then poker is not for you for sure
you are starting everything wrong, thinking about how much you going to make, that you don't have time to waste until you get good...
that's the receipt to fail at trying to be a good poker player

you wont be sucessful in anything in life without a lot of time and dedication, unless you get lucky

you have to approach poker the same way you approach competitive games like BW. your goal should be to crush! not to make a certain amount of money per hour.

When you play video games, you don't see it as a waste of time, correct? you should only start playing poker if you find it fun.

I don't think you should consider $/hour, or let me clarify

like in BW you don't talk about builds as "at 6 minutes add 2 barracks" it's more like "at 31 supply add 2 barracks" because supply is an actual game metric, time is not, the same is true of poker, 1 hour could be 30 hands an hour at a live table or you could be 4 tabling zoom poker at like 1000 hands an hour. the relevant metric to consider is how many hands you played not how many hours you played, and even then it is only useful as an average, not a benchmark to set for yourself, that is a mistake because even if you play well you are ultimately playing cards dealt to you by the universe so the point is to make good decisions not decisions that, if right, will make you the most money per hour

if you are a winning player maybe say you will win 10 big blinds per 100 hands, which would on average be a buy-in every 1000 hands, now it depends what limit you're playing as to how much money that becomes and then it depends how many tables/hands you can play per hour before you can't keep up... before you can quantify $/hour

but these are measurements not benchmarks, the important thing is to make good decisions, like in BW you don't spend any time thinking oh how am I going to win this game, will it be with a doom drop or will he suicide his army into mine or will I destroy his mining expansions... you are focused on decision making like he blocked his ramp and didn't take a fast natural I need to be cautious, he overexpanded so there is a timing for me to be aggressive, I need upgrades to keep up with his tech

you missed the poker is easy money train by at least 5 years. starting with poker now means you will have to grind for a long time to get experienced before you can expect to be profitable, and unless you have a lot of money to invest, you will also have to do this grind gradually on different stakes which means the skill you manage to accumulate doesn't even fully transfer over.

at least for cashgame/sng, tournament poker is still fairly easy to get a good roi over thousands of tournaments I guess, but you can't in any way whatsoever depend on a steady income from that.

that would be my recommendation though, get a job and have tournament poker as a hobby, if you're good at it it's like a fun lottery where you get several tickets for each one you buy. But starting to grind micro limits now and not having a year to spend trying to be good means it's not for you.

On May 25 2014 13:35 Liquid`Drone wrote: you missed the poker is easy money train by at least 5 years. starting with poker now means you will have to grind for a long time to get experienced before you can expect to be profitable, and unless you have a lot of money to invest, you will also have to do this grind gradually on different stakes which means the skill you manage to accumulate doesn't even fully transfer over. at least for cashgame/sng, tournament poker is still fairly easy to get a good roi over thousands of tournaments I guess, but you can't in any way whatsoever depend on a steady income from that. that would be my recommendation though, get a job and have tournament poker as a hobby, if you're good at it it's like a fun lottery where you get several tickets for each one you buy. But starting to grind micro limits now and not having a year to spend trying to be good means it's not for you.

+1

this game is very hard now, a lot of OPs heroes at BW who made a killing at poker in the beginning are now struggling at low stakes games

-is there a certain amount you should expect to win per hour/per something on average compared to the limited you play at, that indicates you are doing well? for example at a NL5 table maybe you could expect to win on average 2dollars per hour...also what is a good time period to base these averages off? 10hours? a week? a month?
$/hour should be ignored largely until you play for a living.

And even now I ignore $ per hour playing for a living at $16-$50 tables. Or winrate. Or money I won or lost for that matter. It just brings unnecessary attachment which leads to tilt/ focusing on money instead of playing your best and making best decisions. Only reason to check is bankroll management and a very very rough idea of how you are doing. Short term means nothing in poker.


-are tracking devices and playing the opponent what makes a winning player, or is it possible to win without having to pay for shit like that (I assume u have to pay for HUD or whatever else people use)
two major huds - PT4 and HEM2 have 1-2 month free trials, so it'll be a few months before you have to pay anything, and you'll easily be able to afford them afterwards if you play often.

-how long does it take to grow from a noob to someone who can make 10hour..15/hour..20/hour..30/hour etc
again hourly is something that you should get out of your head.
There's people that can make $10/hr consistently after a few months, there's people that have been playing for literally years that post on forums that are breaking even
Best way to reach high hourly
is to ignore hourly
this thing's full of paradoxes

and most importantly, what is the difference between people like me who arent making money, and those who are. would someone be interested in coaching me?
hard work, discipline, lack of ego, control of your emotions and solid logical thinking will get you far no matter what
these are the things that good people have e.g. I lack in and work on many of these
there's shitloads of video training sites, articles, books, when you get better and grasp the basics there'll be loads of people you can get skype groups with, forums and all sorts of advice it's harder to navigate through what's good than to get these


I cant imagine being able to get inside the heads of any opponents when you have only a second or two to spend at each table to make the correct move, so the decision must come down to some predetermined formula, or gut feeling in the moment.
Sure systems work at first at lowest levels, but these days even NL10 gets hard when you just play by charts*.

*+ Show Spoiler +

In poker it's called the funnel principle to hand reading.

Instead of expecting people to hold 2 cards you assign them a range of 2cards.
for example a good regular opens he doesn't have 100% hands, but around 13-17% when he raised from first position. You have a rough idea of what they are through experience, reads and every piece of information you get at the table, studying, talking to people and generalizing your opponents etc.. Now his every further action/sizing "removes" hands from his range and "narrows it down" and you try to make the most long term profitable play against the range you estimated etc.


will BW help you with poker?
well, yeah if you played seriously
you'll be used putting in huge hours, studying articles, talking to people.
APM is close to useless ofc tho it'll just help multitabling at start.

Is poker dead?
no far from it. No lomit holdem cash games are probably the toughest now to learn to win at and climb the ranks but it's still more than possible
but If I were in your position I'd seriously research first and figure out what's the most profitable variant in poker, and then jump into it.
There is bigger money to be made in different games I assume, tournament poker is soft in NLHE still but the long term there is really long term.

I for one love poker, I started playing in 2009 for fun at uni, had to stop twice for over a year because of jobs etc. but I always loved it and now it's all I do. I still don't consider it work even though I work and study/talk about it 40++hrs/week and on top of that a lot of my free time revolves around getting fit and improving my mental strength, but that's a big reason why I love poker - it forces you into working on yourself.

Some of the old farts that played just for money, couldn't adapt and burnt out will try to discourage you but don't listen to them haters.
Give poker a serious shot, completely forget about the money and see if you enjoy the game, and if you do enjoy it more than other things then you'd be crazy NOT to play

lol I dont play poker for fun, if I wanted to play a video game for fun id still be playing BW. I didnt mean that the time spent was a waste, I meant that if Id be continually losing money over a year thats not very appealing.

Santafairy thnx for giving me some idea of general profit expectations. I agree that per/hour isnt the greatest way to measure it but I didnt know what to use instead.

Is there a way to keep track of your # of hands played?

you won't be losing money if you work hard. I.e. literally nobody I know that plays for a while seriously ever deposits money.
but you will gain very little at start. And often you don't gain any money at all.

So if it's money you are primarily after and the game is not fun for you there really is no point in even trying and you are indeed too late. The opportunity cost of time spent is way too large unless you have very shitty career prospects.

Ah thnx for the long post LemOn. Someone whos positive about learning poker today holy shit O.o

So you say that you dont worry about money/hour, but I gather from your post that you make a living solely or primarily off of poker..? So you must be assured of your ability to make at least some money right? May I ask what kind of earnings you do make at those levels?

Also you say that HUDs have free trials and I should be able to pay for it easily after 2months if im playing a lot..so therefore id be making a profit after 2months, contrary to what the others are saying here that id have to play for at least a year. Maybe im misunderstanding the difference between profit and making a living off of poker.

edit: I am after money ofc, but poker is also fun too, just not as fun as BW was imo. Its fairly addicting in its own right and the lifestyle is very appealing - im used to grinding hours and hours and then thinking over my losses from BW, being able to work as much or as little as I want on any given day, and basically getting out what you put into it

Not having to deposit more money is reassuring

I make between $800-$1k per month at the stakes I play at. I didn't have a losing month since I came back to poker over a year ago but I already had a lot of knowledge from the past I was far from starting from scratch (I did start from $50 again though )
I live in Czech Republic with low expenses, still I cash out a lot so I'm at levels where I'm better by a large margin than other people. I'm too risk averse for my own good to be honest but yeah I know that literally all I have to do is put in a lot of high quality hours, and I will easily make a living and that money earned or lost short run is just a distraction. And I am operating at stakes what many people would call "the sewers" of the poker world (and there are many wide gaps for improvement in my game)

Knowing if you are up or down or bothering your head with hourly doesn't help you with anything besides knowing when to move up or down a stake roughly. Short term doesn't really matter and will mess with your head. That's different from bw a lot - you lose a game, look at replay and you know exactly what to work on - BO, macro etc. In poker you do everything right and you lose, then you win large money but your play was bad
Here is a podcast with our very own Elky where he talks about this, including parallels with bw:
http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/blog/interview-with-elky/

At start don't expect to cash out for a long time anyway - all you will focus on is getting better, making better decisions, learning and moving up the stakes. All of us poker players including me fall often into a trap where we start focusing on hourly, get depressed after even one losing day, and start increasing quantity over quality - which does lead to higher immediate hourly, but is awful long run. But learning this lesson is part of the process I'd be surprised if anyone would be any different at start. I try not to look at any graphs, cashier anymore tho, just once per month to know how much I can cash out and what stakes I can play

Poker is a brutal game. The swings can huge and dry periods long-stretched. Beating the rake and other players in the long run is very hard. The whole industry itself is shady and there have been many scandals. Some of the "successful" pokerplayers are just posers (I especially like the story of Brad "Yukon" Booth: A canadian who got lots of facetime on TV around ~2008 or so and who had an utter meltdown in 2012, posting a video on Youtube in which he was crying like a baby about his gambling addiction, debts and degenerate lifestyle [unfortunately this video is no longer available]).
My advice is: Stay away from it, get a college degree or find something else you enjoy doing and make it your job.

IMO you should get an education and play poker on the side.. lots of great players went that route.

On May 25 2014 15:09 DragOn_ wrote: lol I dont play poker for fun, if I wanted to play a video game for fun id still be playing BW. I didnt mean that the time spent was a waste, I meant that if Id be continually losing money over a year thats not very appealing. Santafairy thnx for giving me some idea of general profit expectations. I agree that per/hour isnt the greatest way to measure it but I didnt know what to use instead. Is there a way to keep track of your # of hands played?

and i can't stress enough it's not to be used as a benchmark AT ALL, here are some examples of ways you could make that mistake and possibly not even know it:
-okay this session i want to play 10,000 hands, so far at NL10 stakes i win by 5BB/100 hands so by the end of it i should be up $50 (10,000 hands is a lot right so i should be confident in my winrate over that big a sample? no anything can happen, you could break even or it was like going fishing and you're up $300)
-the last 2000 hands i played the same as i usually do and i usually win 10BB/100 hands but am down 2 buy-ins so in the next 3000 hands i should be able to win 5 buy-ins (gambler's fallacy in disguise)
-if i get it all in with kings i should win 80% of the time unless he has aces in which case 20% of the time or AK in which case 60% of the time, the last 4 times i got it in with kings i lost so i can rule out my opponent having aces this time (focused too much about results, forgot to look at the opponent, it's chris ferguson, of course he has aces, you just lost another pot)

it's a long term measurement of how good your decisions are compared to the people you're playing against

you can keep track not only of the # of hands played but also save your entire hand history and there are commercial (and maybe freeware) tools that can analyze your game and give you information, however when you're beginning this information could range from meaningless to harmful to your game due to you not knowing what to do with it or applying it wrong, the same logic even applies to HUDs, it's a tool YOU should use to have more information/edge, it shouldn't control you

if i could use an analogy it is like a mediocre 1500 chess player analyzing his games lazily with an unbeatable computer engine. after the fact he realizes oh here are some moves i could have done that are extremely good and this is why, but (if he's not careful) he's not training his decision making process. so like he's treating every game as a special case. imagine you play 100 games and after each one find some moves you think are mistakes, or the engine says is bad, and the engine says here are some moves i, an invincible computer, would have played instead, then on the 101st game you play there is a mild similarity to what happened in game #36. your brain is NOT going to remember game #36 specifically among all 100 games you played so the analysis you did, while it may be true in a vacuum, isn't going to help you win game #101

different people learn differently but as long as you work and DON'T LIE TO YOURSELF you should improve. try lots of things, like watching videos, reading articles, watching other people play at all levels (from the hands people post online to televised poker), working shit out for yourself on paper or excel, playing with basic tools like hand calculators, the only singly indispensable part of learning is practicing. you need some other stuff too but that's up to you what works best

see part of the reason why you actually need to play for months before you can see if you're getting anywhere is that it takes a shitload of experience to just escape this "I won so I played well" or "I lost so I played badly" mindset.

alright thnx for all the advice guys. Yeah its a learning process and Im not intending to depend on poker as a sole income, I still intend to go to school etc Id just like to see how far I can take poker as a possible supplementary income source. atm ive downloaded the free trial HEM2 and im reading a couple books/just practicing a lot