New player back after years. I Got Questions

cdooley72

cdooley72

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A few maybe four years ago I was playing olp a lot. Nothing mayor as far as money goes mostly low money MTT and SNG. I like tournaments because as a low money player I get more play time for my money. Not to long ago some friends and I were talking about getting a local game going and it got me thinking about OLP again, so here I am.

After looking into US player site and what options were there I was happy to see that I had a few to choose from. After checking them out I have decided to play mostly at Black chip. After playing about 1,500 hands I have a few questions that I hope you guys can help me with. I know some if not all of these questions could be found with the search tool. But i want to interact with the community not just lurk.

Question 1
Is black chip a good choice? As far as deposits and withdraws, player pool, security ect ect.

Question 2
It seems to me that the meta game has changed some what to a more tight game vs a more loose aggressive game. Back when I was playing a lot everyone wanted to play like Gus Hanson. Do you feel this is true?

Question 3
I have been using Tournament Indicator on a trial. Would you recommend it for purchase? If not what would you recommend?


I hope I posted this in the right place. I am more of a tournament player and my questions are geared toward MTT and SNG so I posted it here. If I put it in the wrong place soory and feel free to move it.

Thanks in advance

Cdooley
 
cardriverx

cardriverx

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1. Black Chip is the best you'll get in terms of deposits/withdrawls -- with withdrawls taking about a month. But, with it being a US site, never put too much on it that you wouldn't be able to live with losing.

2. Players are not only tighter, they are better (as a whole). This is for many reasons -- its harder to find a US site so recreational players don't play as much, and people usually know kinda what they're doing.

3. Use HEM (Holdem Manager) or PT3 (Poker Tracker 3)
 
xUnrated

xUnrated

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Black Chip and Carbon are the top Merge skins and it is a fine choice.
All merge skins share a player pool, with skins having a few games of their own of course, but the roughly 10000 players you see are from about 20 different sites.

Play is better because for the most part only people that are serious about the game still play. No more weekend pokerstars for guys that have nothing to do.

I dont use a HUD but most people seem to like Poker Tracker 3 the most.
 
cdooley72

cdooley72

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Thank you for the reply and the advice.

Do you guys think that there might be an influx of players now that there seems to be more US site available to play at as word gets out?

I mean I came back and I am hooked already.

Thanks again
 
B

Big_Rudy

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Thank you for the reply and the advice.

Do you guys think that there might be an influx of players now that there seems to be more US site available to play at as word gets out?

I mean I came back and I am hooked already.

Thanks again

I kind-of doubt it. There really aren't getting to be any more sites, just the opposite, actually. The market for US players is still contracting as every once in awhile a site that had held out for US players gives-up and leaves the market. There were a handful that survived after Black Friday, but over time that number has shrank to basically Merge, Cake/Lock, and Bovada (the old bodog). Plus Bovada uses an anonymous format that really isn't too popular with many, many players.
 
oacnaf

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I really enjoy playing on Merge (Black Chip is on the Merge network), imho it has the best skin / interface.. most comfortable poker site.. As far as the difference in play, you really see a lot more people who are dedicated to playing instead of the everyday joe who just swarmed to online poker 6-7 years ago, so generally its tighter but there are always the exceptions.. I've purchased TI and like it, but probably would go with PT3 if I were you
 
moemtg

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As far as HUD's and trackers go I prefer HEM2 (Holdem Manager 2)... Best $90 I have invested in poker to this date!
 
cdooley72

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Thanks again for the replys and I will check out HM2. On the pt3 site it does not state that it is compatible on the merge network.
 
Reptar7

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1. Black Chip is the best you'll get in terms of deposits/withdrawls -- with withdrawls taking about a month. But, with it being a US site, never put too much on it that you wouldn't be able to live with losing.

2. Players are not only tighter, they are better (as a whole). This is for many reasons -- its harder to find a US site so recreational players don't play as much, and people usually know kinda what they're doing.

3. Use HEM (Holdem Manager) or PT3 (Poker Tracker 3)

This but also play on Hero just for the freerolls!
 
Roller

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Merge is Merge - but Black Chip would be considered at least one of the top 3 or 4 merge skins at the moment imo.
 
dj11

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PT3, and PT4 (beta) both work fine on Merge.
 
cdooley72

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Thanks for letting me know that pt3/4 work with merge.

I have never heard of hero until now, thanks I will have to check it out.

Thanks all again
 
dj11

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Thanks for letting me know that pt3/4 work with merge.

I have never heard of hero until now, thanks I will have to check it out.

Thanks all again

Do you understand how skins work? Merge has (at last count) at least 35 different skins. At each table, players can come from any of those skins. Each site handles the money from each of its 'members'. So some sites on the network (merge for example), can have drastically different reputations in regard to how it handles the money (deposits and withdrawals, and P2P xfers). No U.S. serving site gets stellar reviews as far as withdrawals go. But from sort of following this, BCP seems to have a more favorable reputation than some others.

No one mentioned ACR (Americas Card Room.) It serves the U.S., but we have few if any reports posted about withdrawals.
 
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cdooley72

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Yes I understand how skins work. Nice to hear that BCP has a some what good reputation as I seem to like it the most as of now.

I have ACR installed it seem ok but I like BCP better. I have yet to put money into any account yet as I do not feel back up to speed yet and would like to get at least a few 1000 hands under my belt before I put any money in. Just been playing freerolls for now.
 
Arjonius

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I was under the impression most Merge skins use the Merge cashier, which suggests each one doesn't handle their players' money. Don't know if it's still possible, but some skins used to use their own cashiers. I think Feltstars was one.
 
dj11

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I was under the impression most Merge skins use the Merge cashier, which suggests each one doesn't handle their players' money. Don't know if it's still possible, but some skins used to use their own cashiers. I think Feltstars was one.

My impression is just the opposite, with each site handling the money from each player.

No one spells out those funky details, or at least I haven't found them.
 
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Big_Rudy

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Hmmmm...interesting. I was under the same impression as Arjon and that most Merge skins used the same cashier with a few exceptions, such as Lock before they left.
 
cdooley72

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I have noticed that when you click on the deposit link the URL will have the sub domain of the merge skin but the main domain will be mergcashier.com. So at the few that I have looked at it seems to be the same cashier.
 
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