Can a social player just be as good as someone who plays daily?

Fieldsy

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Let's say there are two people who play a lot and the same amount of time....we call them Player A and Player B. These players are two great players who are about equal in skill. They play 5 hours a day for a few years. The next year it changes for Player B.

Player A plays poker for a living. He spends atleast 5 hours a day on poker and makes a lot of profit.

Player B gets a "normal" job, but continues to play poker about 6-8 hours a week. He makes about the same profit (on average) as player A.

Will this trend continue to be true? Will Player A eventually out perform Player B due to just spending a lot more time at the tables.

Or is poker just like riding a bike? You learn as much as you can, and you never forget it, meaning you can play a lot less but be just as profitable.

I hope this makes sense.
 
BluffMeAllIn

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Or is poker just like riding a bike? You learn as much as you can, and you never forget it, meaning you can play a lot less but be just as profitable.

guess this is essentially the question, because your scenario kinda gets skewed when you say player b still makes the same profit as player a. If they are of equal skill and essentially making the same profit in Year 1 and now in Year 2 Player A plays at least 6x as much as Player B then unless something else has drastically changed Player A because of volume should profit 6x as much as Player B.

Back to the original question, we all know how much poker changes so unlike learning to ride a bike which never changes poker does evolve and is a lifelong learning endeavor if you wish to maintain relatively the same position as you currently do. Also we know profits in poker is a volume game so less volume will usually mean less profit.

I hope this response makes sense lol.
 
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rumsey182

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Maybe in low levels but not at all in mid to high stakes
 
Fieldsy

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guess this is essentially the question, because your scenario kinda gets skewed when you say player b still makes the same profit as player a. If they are of equal skill and essentially making the same profit in Year 1 and now in Year 2 Player A plays at least 6x as much as Player B then unless something else has drastically changed Player A because of volume should profit 6x as much as Player B.

Back to the original question, we all know how much poker changes so unlike learning to ride a bike which never changes poker does evolve and is a lifelong learning endeavor if you wish to maintain relatively the same position as you currently do. Also we know profits in poker is a volume game so less volume will usually mean less profit.

I hope this response makes sense lol.


Player B doesn't make the same profit total as A, I said on average. So if Player A makes 100k a year and Player B plays 10x less, but matches the profit per average, he makes 10k.


It is kinda tricky. I basically want to ask if someone who was once so into the game of poker, turned into a social player, would he stay the same skill wise or lose more due to poker changing.
 
Fieldsy

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I'm more or less asking this question for myself too. I play live and online, but I just do not enjoy playing online poker. I know the skill is higher online, but that is not what keeps me less interested. It is the fact that I don't have a passion for online poker.

I want to improve my game, but I can't just go to the casino every day and play. Would studying the game (books, forums, etc) be almost just as good as if I was playing online poker at home? I know it is probably impossible to answer that....just an opinion would do.
 
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I think this essentially comes down to the games you play and with which players. if you play one or 2 nights weekly your unlikely to get any worse.

But you can be sure full time players will get better and constantly keeping updated with their game and working on uncomfortable areas.

What tends to happen is recreational players have a style and they never put in enough volume to overcome this style playing part time, unless they read books and watch alot of poker in spare time.
We all have area's that we are uncomfortable with or area's maybe post flop we lose +EV because we dont feel comfortable responding to aggressive plays without a good enough hand since most recreational players dont really know how too respond or have the in game experience to effectively make the best decisions. Also bankroll management plays lesser part of their game and they might not want to take profitable high variance risks if this is their only weekly buy in and they dont want an early trip home, so they dont take that risk.

You find players who play full time will take high variance risks if long term its going to be the best play to make a ROI
 
DaBrowner

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I learn alot form reading posts form Cardchat members, I don't post very offen because I feel as though other members could give better advice.
 
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player a will outperform

Let's say there are two people who play a lot and the same amount of time....we call them Player A and Player B. These players are two great players who are about equal in skill. They play 5 hours a day for a few years. The next year it changes for Player B.

Player A plays poker for a living. He spends atleast 5 hours a day on poker and makes a lot of profit.

Player B gets a "normal" job, but continues to play poker about 6-8 hours a week. He makes about the same profit (on average) as player A.

Will this trend continue to be true? Will Player A eventually out perform Player B due to just spending a lot more time at the tables.

Or is poker just like riding a bike? You learn as much as you can, and you never forget it, meaning you can play a lot less but be just as profitable.

I hope this makes sense.


player A will outperform in the longrun, the reason is player B will share his energies between his job and poker, so when he plays poker his skills will be limited for tireness

player a will play at full energy and his skills will improve because his brain will be more prepare to learn new things while player b will play like a robot doing the same thing because his tire and will not evolute
 
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I'm more or less asking this question for myself too. I play live and online, but I just do not enjoy playing online poker. I know the skill is higher online, but that is not what keeps me less interested. It is the fact that I don't have a passion for online poker.

I want to improve my game, but I can't just go to the casino every day and play. Would studying the game (books, forums, etc) be almost just as good as if I was playing online poker at home? I know it is probably impossible to answer that....just an opinion would do.

I was in the same boat with this. I couldnt play as much as I used to. Books and forums are good to read to gain information. However you need to play whether it be live or online to apply that information. I feel the game changes so much that to be a solid player you need to study and play a lot to be able to keep up.
 
Vhyre

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I know that the more I play and study, the better I become. I took a long break and was not even close to my previous level when I returned. I don't think that the casual player can ever really be as profitable as the dedicated one.
 
dealio96

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I Don't agree. I play online poker everyday 10 hours plus, so if I get a job and start working part-time but still playing at night my poker skill is gona plummet? Just stay sharp around the edges fieldsy and you should be alright:)
 
Fieldsy

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Thanks all,

I am really just trying to improve my live play and will do whatever helps best.
Would it be better for me to just study poker, interact on here over playing online when I really don't have as much passion. The downfall to online is that I can tolerate SNG's, but I am a cash game player when it comes to live. They are totally different. I don't want to think I am in a SNG when I am playing live. I know some will say well play online cash, but online cash I will admit my attention goes elsewhere. If online cash helps me improve as a live player, then I will give it a shot.

I am just wondering if somehow I can practice at home by reading and studying over playing online cash and improve my game just as well.
 
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RickH1983

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I Don't agree. I play online poker everyday 10 hours plus, so if I get a job and start working part-time but still playing at night my poker skill is gona plummet? Just stay sharp around the edges fieldsy and you should be alright:)

Try doing that and see what happens.
 
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rumsey182

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I Don't agree. I play online poker everyday 10 hours plus, so if I get a job and start working part-time but still playing at night my poker skill is gona plummet? Just stay sharp around the edges fieldsy and you should be alright:)

This is somewhat wrong, your correct but like anything you practice the more you do it the more efficient you should be at it
 
etherghost

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Lot's to be learned. It takes years to become a pro and by years I don't mean just playing cards but also studying your own game and fixing leaks. Online poker lacks the ability to learn to read your opponents because you don't see them personally and do not get to learn how to recognize their "tells".

In my opinion, online is way easier for someone above average at card play (odds, position, even player stats). Poker, however, becomes much harder when you sit at a table and must play the player and not the cards. This, unfortunately, is not possible online.
 
LongJohn45

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I believe the more you play, the better you get. And comparing riding a bike to poker is wrong. Poker is a little more complex and has a lot more subtlety to it. A better analogy would be to compare it to a muscle. The more you train it, the bigger and better it gets. There is a ceiling to one's poker skill, but it takes many years of hard practice and dedication to reach that Kind of level. And even the very best aren't perfect all the time. In some situations, you need a little luck in order to win in poker.
 
MediaBLITZ

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Thanks all,

I am really just trying to improve my live play and will do whatever helps best.
Would it be better for me to just study poker, interact on here over playing online when I really don't have as much passion. The downfall to online is that I can tolerate SNG's, but I am a cash game player when it comes to live. They are totally different. I don't want to think I am in a SNG when I am playing live. I know some will say well play online cash, but online cash I will admit my attention goes elsewhere. If online cash helps me improve as a live player, then I will give it a shot.

I am just wondering if somehow I can practice at home by reading and studying over playing online cash and improve my game just as well.

Absolutely - you talk all you want about Player A and B playing so many hours, but the wildcard to this is the dedication not to playing, but to improving and studying. For example your weakness in playing online cash is your focus drifts. Well if it does online then it does live too - you just don't notice as much as there is more going on around, people to talk to, watch, etc. But in reality hands are coming much, much slower in live and taking more time to complete. Imagine the effect on your live game if you could master your focus issue in online! Start off in smaller chunks. Commit to 100% focus (give or take) on say just 30 minutes of online cash. Can you do it? How long can you go? Can you go longer next time? Again, imagine what that could do for your live game.
Again, you could take player A who plays 60 hours a week and B who plays 16. They are probably both profitable but its the one who is dedicated to improving that will see the most results in that area, don't you think?
 
Fieldsy

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Absolutely - you talk all you want about Player A and B playing so many hours, but the wildcard to this is the dedication not to playing, but to improving and studying. For example your weakness in playing online cash is your focus drifts. Well if it does online then it does live too - you just don't notice as much as there is more going on around, people to talk to, watch, etc. But in reality hands are coming much, much slower in live and taking more time to complete. Imagine the effect on your live game if you could master your focus issue in online! Start off in smaller chunks. Commit to 100% focus (give or take) on say just 30 minutes of online cash. Can you do it? How long can you go? Can you go longer next time? Again, imagine what that could do for your live game.
Again, you could take player A who plays 60 hours a week and B who plays 16. They are probably both profitable but its the one who is dedicated to improving that will see the most results in that area, don't you think?

One point you said might not be right for me. At live games, I enjoy being very friendly and getting people to open up to me. I have people next to me showing me hands they are in on (of course when I folded). I like engaging. With online you really can't do that, so the social aspect of the game (my favorite part) is not there.


One point you made I like. I think just playing maybe 20-30min in online cash just to see how long I can go....and try to build from that.

btw to the person saying Poker is like a muscle, that makes more sense. I guess when I said riding a bike, you never lose the ability to know the game, but you are not improving either if you don't play/study.
 
Poker Orifice

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Bike rider 'A' & Bike rider 'B' will both be able to ride a bike but I know that Bike Rider 'B' doesn't have a hope in hell of making it on the Olympic Cycling team... nevermind even getting a chance to compete at the trials.
.. same goes with poker
 
Arjonius

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A better analogy would be to compare it to a muscle. The more you train it, the bigger and better it gets.
A better analogy would be to compare improving at poker to building one's muscles via being active in general vs training in a manner designed with specific muscles in mind. In terms of poker, you have to play to improve, but you're likely to improve faster and more if you play with the intention of improving specific aspects of your game and armed with guidance on how to address them.
 
horizon12

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Poker can be seen as a job and as a hobby, but when I started to get involved in gambling especially poker, I never thought about it. But for a person with no education, high-paying jobs and wealthy relatives poker a good chance to settle in this life and have a decent income!
The man himself decides when to comes to the table, to have fun or money but rather both.
 
rock0001

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experience is very important in poker but there are lots of fishes who plays almost every day a lot of hours, but makes wrong decisions. the most important thing is to understand the game, evaluate the players you are facing, and adjust your style to beat them. If you play a lot but you dont pay attention to other players details like their range of hands, the raises, c bets, etc, you wont never be a great poker player no matter how many hours you were playing the game.
 
Fieldsy

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experience is very important in poker but there are lots of fishes who plays almost every day a lot of hours, but makes wrong decisions. the most important thing is to understand the game, evaluate the players you are facing, and adjust your style to beat them. If you play a lot but you dont pay attention to other players details like their range of hands, the raises, c bets, etc, you wont never be a great poker player no matter how many hours you were playing the game.

Very true. If you find yourself catching on to your mistakes, you can become much better if you fix it rather than be too stubborn to notice.
 
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I understand your main reason not to like so much online poker is the lack of social interactivity, since you stated that's what you like the most.

Well if you are a recreational player looking to evolve your game (but not seriously thinking about turning it into your main money income), I guess it would'nt hurt to test yourself playing online for a couple hours/day in the intention of evolving your game. Of course you need to play more hands (be it live or online) to get passed the tremendous amount of different situations the game provides, and get experience from it, otherwise you'll have the knowledge for studuying but will lack in experience to deal with the situations.

Furthermore, although you don't get so many social interaction you'll find some good mates to talk to in a cash table (what may cheer you up and incentivate you to keep up the session), and despite what many people think, there's a huge lot of meta-game involved on online poker, as much as on live poker I'd say.
 
blakewyte

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It is kinda tricky. I basically want to ask if someone who was once so into the game of poker, turned into a social player, would he stay the same skill wise or lose more due to poker changing.

In essence, the game doesn't change. It's the people/player who does.

I don't think that Player B would necessarily lose. Maybe he has an advantage over a certain type of player when he plays, if he's lucky to be playing against that player. But on the times he doesn't due to work commitments, he may not have a profitable session.

Player A on the other hand dedicates more time because it's his profession and thus sees and plays against a variety of players, some of whom he can easily peg and identify and then skew his playing style to counter theirs.

I guess Player B can expect to profit, just not in the leaps and bounds like how Player A would because of each individual's time and dedication to the game.

But I could be wrong and there might be a player B out there who's doing a pretty awesome job raking in high profits like player A even as he (player B) holds a full-time job.
 
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