I Give Up On Poker

Some say it is better to be lucky than good but at this point i would take either one.

They also say a hole in one is luck, but it is skill and practice that gets you close.

I seem to give up (voluntarily) about every third month. I do lots of non-poker related things for as long as I can stand staying away, then I do poker reading/studying until I get fired up to play. Seem to move forward a few inches each time this happens. Or at least stop going backwards.

There's something Zen about letting go/giving up. It can magically make room for new ways. At least in my experience. And it's not really magic -- it's work. But it feels like magic, once you're back in the groove.

Good luck to you, eljer. This game is hard on the head

it is hard on the head 4sure

i gave it up for the weekend

now i'm ok

ok well my giving up on poker has lasted just under 24 hours...and now im playing again

Looks like from your first post in the thread till your last one was only about an hour. Way to be stand fast and persevere on your holdout.

um actually it was like 13 hours...close though

Huh. Thought it was military time. Missed the AM/PM.

So you held out for 12 hours... I stand by my original statement on your extreme perservence... welcome back.

Spartans never surrender.

eljerif you happen to find out how to get luck or skill.. can you let me in on it cause i need something too.. havent had anything going for me the past few tournaments ive played in

online poker is a scam and they are making millions! you cant tell me you see the kind of hands in real poker games as you do online. 95 percent its action hands! why? builds the rake. so many river wins. i sat at a 5/10 table and 9 out of 10 times lost on river! 8 out of ten was 1 card diffference,so if you are giving up on online poker,then its a good move. to give up on poker in general? no! its a great game that the internet has ruined online.

So why are good players still making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year online? Why are so many people able to make a living off online poker if it's "a scam"?
Or do they just have chosen accounts that are predetermined to win and who pay the company a part of their winnings? Or some other bullshit theory?

Seriously, get real with this.


Also, nice sample size with your "9 out of 10 times" they win on the river stat.

lol

I mostly agree on this. If you have chance to play live poker, go and play ... online poker sucks. Playing online poker a lot last year I actually forgot how to play real poker. I learned to fold QQ, KK, AA, pre flop, because some idiot with 6 8 will beat me in 75% ocasions ... I also learned that two pairs and straight are worst hands in poker, and should be ALWAYS folded because somebody ALWAYS has trips or flush ... etc ... If only I wouldn't live in a damn small city in a middle of nowhere, I would NEVER ever play online

Post PT stats plz. Or at least mention a sample size/stakes/etc (although without a PT screenshot everyone will probably think you're exaggerating - which you probably are).
I don't know what you "learned" but I completely disagree with everything you said here, and I've played over 50k hands over the last 3 months and am a winning player, (over various sites; PS, FT, PP) and I'm sure quite a few other credible members here will disagree with you as well.

You'll most probably be back. Let's face it, it's a tough game to be consistenlty good at. There is definetly luck involved, and believe I have no luck. But I keep tryin like everyone else. You just have to make sure when you get monster hands that you try to extract as many chips from your opponents that you can which usually means one thing, DON"T KEEP GOING ALL IN. That is not the way to play. See you at the tables hopefully
Boeggs

I play only low stakes ... 2-5 $ SNG's and cash games up to 0.10/0.25 (usually 0.05/0.10). And I played mostly on Poker.com last year, which hand history is not compatible with PT ... but even if it was, I guess it could be arranged to looks like is all OK ... after all, there's too much money in the bussiness.

I would like to hear on the other side, in which rooms and what stakes/games do the winning players play ? Maybe I made a wrong poker room choice

Honestly, from what I have seen and I play a lot live, the same people that lose at the casinos, lose online and vice versa. Fools are fools no matter where you go, and I have seen absolutely crazy hands live, its the same 52 cards and same exact structure, crazy things happen. Maybe you should look as to why your losing with AA vs. 68o. I'll take that matchup online anyday.

^^ what he said. seriously I really didn't expect so much whining about "rigged online poker" here, but on the other hand I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Here's what I believe. Yes there might be an occasional (as in *very* rare) incident like this whole Absolute Poker scandal. However, and this has been repeated ad nauseum, the advantage to online vs live is the ease of which hands can be tracked. With so much data available any site that really is truly rigged would have been outed, boycotted and run out of business by now. These sites make enough money and they don't have to have people win/lose... for every winner there is a loser. The sites couldn't care less who wins/loses. The player base is so large and so full of idiots who create enough action on their own, why would the site need to do that?

What it boils down to in 99.99999% of cases is someone takes a laughably inadequate sample size of their own hands, says "no way should i have lost this many times with these cards, poker is rigged I say!". Granted I have far more online experience, but what live experience I do have isn't much different than online. People who don't know what they are doing online if anything are worse live. They certainly are no better.

On the other hand, when I was in college, so few people really understood statistics...and that *includes* over half of the stats majors (long story, don't get me started). I would expect the general population to be far worse than people in school studying the topic. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

/rant off

Back OT, to the OP I say take your time off. Sometimes that's a necessary part of the game, clearing your head. Don't play when you are emotional. But you'll be back

um for th record i dont think online poker is rigged.

Even if it is rigged and I can make a profit, I don't so much give a rat's patootie.

That's the healthiest attitude to have with online poker!

I find that I have to make my luck most of the time. However, I havent been patient enough to use the winning recipe. Lol, in other words I and becoming a donk, and I dont know why. Too much poker, perhaps makes it too hard to concentrate on the games that I am in. Pure and simple, wait for hands and opportunities and know when to quit.

Good advise, wish I would listen to it, lol

I used to think UB was terrible about river suckouts and such. But I adjusted my game and things have turned around. Another player I know that is getting used to playing online says the samething about it being rigged. How many times do you have to get busted in a tourney going all in after the flop w/ top pair ok kicker, before you realize your risk vs. reward isn't very good. So don't make that play. Especially early in the tourney when starting hands can be anything if you didn't make a big enough raise to start.
Take a few days or a week off an evaluate your play, keep stats and notes on yourself and you may surprise yourself.

You just have to roll with with the ups and downs. I find that due to the amount of hands that are played online compared to live games, there's going to be a higher amount of times that people get sucked out on and those ones stick in the mind.

Another thing is to evaluate your play. Am I really playing a sound and good game of poker? Where are instances that I made a mistake and how can I improve and correct them? Obviously, no one is the perfect player and can always find ways to improve. I'm definitely one of them! I would classify myself as a break-even player as opposed to a winning player - but trying to get there...hopefully I eventually get there.

One other reason that you see more river sukouts (and sometimes even on the turn card) online is simply the increased number of hands that also go to showdown.

When you play live tables, the personal contact, eye to eye action, table image, position, betting patterns, etc, really do mean something. When you take the number of hands played per hour online and multiply it by the increased percentage of hands that actually go to showdown, there are bound to be more sukouts. That too is part of percentages and law of averages, odds as it were.

I've been playing live since '69 and only recently moved to NV where I can play live a lot more. Over those many years, I have never seen as many players willing to raise, re-raise and go all-in as I have online. Hands that do go to showdown are not 5 ways. Betting rounds usually trim the showdown to heads-up, or 3 way worst case. All-ins are NOT a 'common' preflop bet.

I agree that online poker has changed the face, use and play of poker skills. There are 2 styles of play now. Online and live. They are not interchangable in most respects. A big part of this is what the recreational poker player has learned from online freerolls. Ever see a freeroll in a brick 'n mortar casino? But I can say that the freeroll and ESPN TV viewers do show up at casinos to play 'like the pros'. Bless them, for they are a constant source of income.

The same bad beats you see live, you will see online. You just see more online beacuse you play more hands. I want to point out also, I read on here about how poker sites suck because people get rivered and too many suckouts. Do those same people complain when they suck out on people? I doubt it. I had one player in a casino out here in vegas, call this guy all the way to the river and caught his card to take down the pot. The next hand, someone else catches a better two pair on the river and he is all pissed. He was completely silent when he sucked out, but bitched about it when it happened to him.

A very good way of looking at it.

Online poker is sooooo rigged!

I win 9 out of 10 hands when I call an all-in pre-flop with my 2 6 Os against some sucker with AA - QQ. No one ever learns to fold that trash.

I mean go with the winning formula online and push with nothing, you will be richly rewarded!

Don't ever give up on the game, like the saying goes takes a minute to learn but a life time to master. Yet the other saying goes, luck keeps the bad players coming back while skill keeps the good players coming back.

Hold-em is a game of strategy, learn to read your opponents, cards, betting styles, reads, when or when not to bet and fold. This game is always one where one can learn. If you aren't willing to learn then it probably isn't a game for you.

I'd also have to disagree with the scam part of this.......Ive only played small stakes online but as is i have never lost any money, i am up about 5,000 dollars in a lil over a year.....alot of my friends who try to play never make any money..... is it because its a scam or is it because only 1 outta every 9 players actually make money playing poker? You decide.......Meanwhile ill be on the grind ....peace

"Spartans don't give up" Price-less, now that's a mastercard slogan haha.
But really, luck is luck, and bad luck, well it's just that, u can't quit just because of bad beats, I mean, everyone has/will suffer alot of bad beats, but the key is to quit, and don't put all ur hope on any pocket pair, because if u do then for sure ur bound to lose, unless u know where u stand in the hand, but gl both ways, it's ur choice

or maybe you're just not nearly as good at poker as you think. ooh, yeah, i'll go with that one

never heard of this before but i definettly like the saying!

Giving up on poker has become habitual for me! I do it several times a day. I have been on a "downswing" for awhile. The Pro Authors tell me to do something entirely away from poker, then study my library about poker, then pick the smallest, easiest game and book a WIN. To win, to win, to win, that is the problem. I just can't seem to win. So, I think I'll become a chronic habitual cards chatter... .if you find a BETTER SOLUTION, please email me at sandyloomisgunn@hotmail.com. Thanks.