How to make more money playing poker!!!

Hi all.

Question...

I was playing a MTT and a guy who was playing pretty bad and making his mouth go at the table was telling all of us how the only way to be a good player was to play ring games - his opinion so he is welcome to it.

However, after checking his stats on OPR and sharkscope, I noticed he was not setting the World on fire, so I told him so.

His response was "I make $4k a month in rake".

I should have asked him what he meant, but as u can imagine, it was not the time or the place

Can anyone tell me what he means?

Ta

Well for one, he's full of shit saying he makes 4k monthly in rake. I'd think he has to be a full time 2knl player or something, and if that's the case he'd generally be a level-headed person who wouldn't go bragging about it.

He's right in that rings are much more profitable and require much more skill though. That's not to say that tournaments don't require skill, they just require a lot less skill imo.

Don't know if I agree with ya Chuck. There is a LOT to tourny skill, and there are a number of players that live on tourny wins.

However, I think ring games are going to be a much bigger 'grind', and therefore seems like the ring game players play more hands/see more cards then the tourny player.

I guess I can agree that with ring there seems to be a slightly less luck factor because given enough hands played, the cream will rise and the better players show profit. With tourny play there are a few much more simple techniques to use that can be learned at a much quicker rate then a good ring player (i.e. Kill Phil), but to say that tourny's have less skill involved may be a little too much for me. Like you said, imo.

But I agree completely that a guy making $4K a month in rake, and only living off of just that, is full of BS. If you are a losing player and playing enough to make $4k in rake, you're losing your ass. He's full of it.

You can make good money in ring and tourneys, but ring games have bigger swings

That guy needs to be careful what he says. I like to talk at the table... alot. It's part of my game, and I spose I have to work on it like everything else. But I try to be friendly to most, and shittalk some into steaming off chips.

What this guy is doing is pulling his pants down and showing his pimple covered ass. Take his money as often as you can, he will give it to you frequently I bet.

The Ring vs Tourney talk is quite interesting to me. I often feel backwards in the poker community as a ring player first and a tourney player second (or maybe way lower than second).

The obvious big difference is cash games don't have the artificial gamble inducements that tourneys have. In a tourney you have strategy based on skill of the field, structure of the game, and finite chipstack.

I see tourney players coming into ring games getting hammered all the time for trying to gamble like a tourney. I LOVE tables with these players.

As to which takes more skill... It's like riding the Tour de France vs. a Velodrome track race. Cash game is purer I think. More subtle and grindier, yes. Tourneys have more strategic depth.

love,
cAPS

Okay maybe I'm dumber than dirt but I thought the rake was what ft and ps makes on a percentage of each hand....how is a player making a rake....okay, have a good laugh on me if this is as dumb of a question as it sounds to me....
Jane

Glossary of poker terms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

*bzzzzt* wrong.

variance (ie swings) is highest in turbos, then sngs, then MTTs, then 6max, then FR. Not positive if HU has higher variance than sngs, but it's pretty much expected that tourneys have much higher swings/variance.

Agree with Zach...tournies have much more varience then ring. Not really even close imo.

HU cash is probably inbetween MTTs and 6max, imo.

What about in regards of how they are played.

I am new here and don't know you very well yet Zachvac, but the comments I've read lead me to believe you are a successful multi-tabling ring player with a fairly strict TAG style.

I could see a fairly low variance as normal for the online high-multi tabling TAG FR player. But I have a feeling the ultra high stakes cash player on maybe 2 tables at a time, or the successful stong LAG/Maniac cash player might have to sustain some pretty shocking swings.

I do think this can apply to lower stakes as well, but I think it starts breaking up due to the field of player's skill level being so choppy.

Just thinking out loud...

cAPS

Playing style definitely factors into variance. FR doesn't necessarily mean low-variance, but the most common style played there - TAG - does usually yeild low-variance.

And I just want to note that a lag style doesn't necessarily mean high-variance either. Even if you're throwing your stack around fairly liberally, the advantage of having picked up a million small pots in between the big hands will ensure you actually have a very low-variance style.

I mean you could definitely still play a very high-variance shoveydovey lag game, but that's a different story.

What he means is he's a lying git...

4k a month in rake.

My arse.

I haven't played as long as most people here, but this is my opinion.

Playing ring games seems to have the most frequent swings. Not saying how big or small, but you do go up and down a lot more than in tournaments. I've played in 13 tournaments in the past(thanks to Bluffmagazine for showing me that stat) and I lost 12 in a row until finally winning the 13th one. It was by far the largest payout at any one time for me compared to single ring game, but I had a long stretch of losses. So I think that tournaments have a longer periods of swing, but also add the biggest cashout, whereas cash games are better for those who want to see their money go up steadily, but risk going insane from the frequent swings.

Whilst I agree this individual is talking through his arse in his particular instance, but I gotta say $4k/month in rakeback is indeed achievable. Most of the SNE's on Stars are earning min $4k/month in FPP value, some a helluva lot more.

I would imagine the multi tablers on the likes of FT playing 200nl+ are earning in the region of $4k/month.

For the majority of us smaller stakes though $4k months are a long way away !

13 games is just way too small a sample to judge variance on. SnG/MTT variance is huge. If your talking about Sng's then most poker forums who specialise in Sng strategy say you need to play around 1000 games before your ROI has some relevance. I have no idea about MTT's maybe Rex could answer that one, but I suspect the variance is still quite horrid.

The variance i was refering to was more the players style and tilt factor. Can hardly go on Tilt if you get knocked out of a tournament. Maybe just me but my winnings in tournaments are 50 times bigger than in ring games, and my biggest losses in ring are 5 times bigger than tourneys, so stick your bzzzzt where the sun doesnt shine

lol, just saying that you can define variance and calculate it and it's pretty much a fact that ring games have lower variance for almost everyone. Basically it just sounds like you're better at tournaments. For me it's reverse, I had a lucky Sunday Million finish and other than that haven't done that well. In ring it's more of a consistent upwards trend with of course variations in the middle of extreme upswings and downswings, but overall if you look at the graph of a tournament player and the graph of a ring player, the ring players' graph will have more of a steady upward trend rather than lots of periods of being below expectation then the occaisional period where you make way over expectation (the big cash).

to me its all circumstantial, depending on what type of player you are and what tables you play on.

You could play limit, nl, short handed, or lots of different styles of play which has many combinations based across the different games and styles at full table at both ring and tourneys/sit n gos - you cant state one has bigger swings than others purely based on your own results but make an opinion, which mine was

The ones agreeing with you that I was wrong are primarily cash players

I agree, but please provide a citation for this info.

If I have to preserve a bankroll and grind out a profit, I play ring. If I'm looking for a bigger hit, I'll play tourneys but it's much easier for bankroll to decline, even though I am (as my CardsChat placard says) an "Expert" member. hahaha

Sit n Gos are another good way. very popular and profitable.

Sorry guys could someone explain what a simple TAG style is?

Tight-Aggressive.

Basically, you wait for good cards and play them hard.

Tight Aggressive Strategy - Poker Style TAG - Tight Poker Players

Just out of curiosity how much was the buyin for the tourney you guys were playing in?

Can`t remember exactly, but it would have been something like $10 - $20 buy in MTT.

I think the original question was what did he mean by making money on rake. If you are smart enough to check the rakeback sites BEFORE you sign up for a poker site you can sign up thru the rakeback site and they will give you a percentage of your rake. I hadn't heard of this when I signed up for the big sites, much to my dismay. But I do get it on absolute poker, 30% of what I pay in rake I get back. At best it has been about $250 a month. It would be really hard to get to 4K. But I agree that that is where you make money playing poker. It is a good deal for all. I tend to play AP when I don't have a compelling reason to play elsewhere. So AP may give 50% of my rake to rakeback, but they keep 50% and it is 50% they would not have had otherwise. then RB gives me 30% and they make 20%. All three of us make extra money.

Im not sure, Ive spent $2000 in rake in a single month playing 2/4 tables and lots of tourneys, so its possible to spend that much but i dont know how he would make $ unless its one of the rakeback site.

imo tourneys and ring games have diff skills, not 1 more skilled than the other. its easier for a ring game player to play tourneys than a tourney player to play ring games though

ring games are deff more proffitable over the long run