PoKeRFoRNiA
Legend
Bronze Level
Hi Cardschat members. It's been a long while since I've been to this forum. Ever since Black Friday, I've stayed off poker for a while and then decided to grind live and as I did, I realized how much this forum has helped me and I have successfully mastered and grinded $1/$2 live easily although this stake is only equivalent to 2NL,5NL,10NL microstakes level online.
Short story
I was a gambling degenerate who ran well, then lost all the profits that I acquired from good run of luck. I deposited total of $200 online, lost it all. Friend helped me get them back + $50. I lost that $50, went broke online. I then used full tilt points to revive my bankroll by playing 50 ftps daily dollar satellites and daily dollar tournaments, and play for $26 satellite tokens, and as I was reviving it, I studied poker books and others experiences and hands, and grinded microstakes and never went broke again. Then Black Friday occurred, I haven't played poker for over a year and half. I recently decided to grind live in Hollywood Park Casino and Commerce Casino. I used the same set of skills, knowledge, I've been playing $1/$2 stake and I am crushing them easily since they are only equivalent to 2NL-10NL online. I believe I have mastered $1/$2 stake since I profited almost $5k. I am ready to move to $2/$4.
Advices based on my experience
1. Bankroll Management
Before considering how many buy-ins you should have, you should ask yourself "What kind of player are you?" Are you an aggressive player? tight player? Do you have good tilt control and management? Do you loosen or tighten up from facing bad beats, card dead, or having big stack in cash games? Do bad beats affect your play?
If you are an aggressive player, you should have more buy-ins. If you are a tight player, you can manage brm with 20 buy-ins in cash games, 40 buy-ins in sngs. I used 120 buy-ins for sngs and move back down when I drop down to 100 buy-ins. I played $5.5 sngs when I have $660 but consider dropping down to $2.25 if I drop down to $550 because if I lose 20 buy-ins, I would tell myself that I am either running extremely bad or there's a leak in my game but either way, drop down and grind my way back to 120 buy-ins of $5.5, which is $660. I used sng brm system to cash games and it's been working well for me.
I am an aggressive spewtard player who couldn't control tilt very well. I would bluff and semi-bluff so many times like there's no tomorrow. Learning curve was hectic. So it turned out that to me, I had to use 120 buy-ins and move back down when I reach 100 buy-ins. This has been working successfully.
Everyone is different, so everyone will have their own level of management. When I initially lost $200 online, I was using Ferguson's 20 buy-in brm rule, which made me fail big time because I was comparing myself to Ferguson, accomplished professional poker player who has mastered the game from low to high stakes, whereas I am a newbie(still am) and never accomplished nowhere near his level. Another thing part of bankroll management is, YOU MUST LEARN HOW TO MOVE DOWN. There is NO SHAME in moving down. What’s the worst that can happen in moving down? If your reasoning is that you won’t profit as much as when you played in higher stake, then you are viewing this game based on $$ instead of blinds and buy-ins.
2. Time Management
Again, you must ask yourself what kind of player you are in terms of emotion, personality, tilt control, etc. How much time do you have? I personally like to give myself an option to play upto 24 hours. I am a type of person who used to tilt crazy and can't play my game optimally if I am losing. On the other hand, when I am winning, my ego got in the way like I am the king of the table and that nobody can mess with me. Based on my personality, I've decided that the best way for me to manage my time was based on my losses. I set a limit of 2-3 buy-ins. If I lose 2-3 buy-ins, even within 5 minutes, I would just leave no matter what. On these days, I would tell myself that either I played horribly, or I am cursed and destined to lose on those days no matter what I do and how perfectly I play, I won't win anything on those days. Even fishes and donks have their winning days. However, if I am winning, I will stay there as long as I can, whether it be 10 hours or 20 hours or until I feel like I am not playing my best anymore or I ran into a huge hit to lose some chunk of my winnings. Inspired by Phil Laak's challenge of 115 hours, I decided to keep playing as long as i am winning. Longest I’ve ever played was from 7pm to 9am, 14 hours w le my shortest session was less than 5 minutes.. If you are winning, you should play as long as you can while if you are losing, you should cut it short even if u just got there. Treat yourself with tasty meals and food at casinos to keep yourself going. Advice, don’t drink alcohol if you believe it’ll affect your play. I tend to loosen up when I am drinking. Keypoint here is, maximize your winning session by playing as long as you can while minimize your losing session. Sounds easy in theory but it will take strong discipline to do this. Think about it. If you’re winning, then others are losing. Most don’t have discipline to quit and they’re wanting your money back. They are not likely to play their best A game. Take ADVANTAGE of this. This is the only reason why I am not able to have scheduled time of playing because I feel that if I set a schedule to how long I should play for, then I’m only increasing my losing session when running bad or at best, break even, while cutting my winning session when I am running hot. Some players have good tilt control and can play their A game even if they lose. Then scheduled sessions will work for them. This is currently my leak and I tend to fix this by playing tournaments to learn how to play A game even after facing beats and tilting situations since you cannot leave in middle of tournaments. But until I fix this, I am better off just quitting based on buy-in loss while staying as long as I can if I’m winning. It's very important to have alternate activities to do in your life. When I lose 2-3 buy-ins, I tell myself that today is not my day and I have better things to do with my life than being a degenerate who continuously play poker under tilted influence. Make yourself a list of things to do, such as movies, sports, video games, sex, karaoke, tv, etc. Gambling degenerates don't have anything better in their lives, which is why they mourn over their losses and continuously play under tilted influence regardless of how much they've lost. Don't be one of them. You can always come back next time and win.
3. Table Selection and Time selection
I personally like to play live during Friday nights and weekends. It’s the time where lot of fishes and donks who don’t even have half of knowledge of game of mine play. Just remember, there are players who are worse than you. Your objective is to make money. Prey on players and tables who are there to have fun and also players full of ego who think they know what they’re doing but in reality they don’t. Pick the tables who like to whine and talk lot of shit. These are type of players who tilt easily where you can take advantage of if you take some chunk of their stacks. Time selection will vary based on where you live. But I live in Los Angeles and lot of donks and fishes come to play between Friday night to Saturday night and in some casinos with hotels, upto Sunday morning and afternoon. You must figure out when is the likely best time where lot of horrible players will play. I’ve played during day times of weekdays and my win rate wasn’t great. There tend to be lot of grinders on weekdays around where I live.
4. Study, Study, Study
Let’s face it. Unless you’re making a living off poker and balling, you need to study this game. Even professionals like Hevad Khan keeps track of his games and hands. He studies the hands he had against Barry Greenstein. But even if you are making living off poker, you will still end up studying to get better. Do not let your ego get in your way. I admit that when I first played poker, my ego was heavily in the way and whenever I won and had winning sessions, I assumed that I’m winning because I know what I’m doing and I am the best player, while when I’m losing, I just justify my losing session as bad run of cards and donks and fishes getting lucky on me. This mindsets gotta go and be gone. You must study this game. I’ve studied this by reading poker books, filtering out what can be useful, what’s not, etc. I’ve used this forums and saw many hand analysis. I’ve seen many awkward spots when I personally don’t even know what to do or what advices to give based on ideal and logical reasonings. Simply tell yourself, why are there players horrible than you? Because you have more knowledge about the game than them. Why are there players who are better than you. Simply because they have more knowledge than you. Time and experience doesn’t make you better. Increased, applied knowledge with experience makes you better. As you study, you will eventually learn what are effective, useful books and tips while what are useless ones. Studying is the only way to get better. Without studying and improving yourself, you will always be where you’re at. I haven’t studied much since Black Friday and my skill level is only at microstakes where I am good enough to grind microstakes online and lowest stake live. I have to study and practice to get better and reach higher stakes. No matter how well you apply first three advices of this thread, if you do not study, you’ll always be where you’re at if you’re a break-even player or slightly profiting player, or your bankroll would just bleed slowly if you’re a losing player.
The best book I’ve ever read that was most influential to my poker career was probably Treat Poker Like a Business by Dusty Schmidt(Leatherass9)
Software: HEM but PT3 works fine.
Software is a must-have IMO as an online poker player. While it’s not a software that can make you automatically become a winner player, it will give you a good blueprint of how decisions should be calculated based on and it can help you detect where your leaks are. It’s upto the individual to utilize it and fix themselves.
I hope this can be helpful and if there's anyone who can detect leak with my advices or dispute it, feel free to do so. These are just advices I've been using and acquired based on my experience and studying. I am always open to see if there are better methods and advices to improve my metagame efficiently.
Short story
I was a gambling degenerate who ran well, then lost all the profits that I acquired from good run of luck. I deposited total of $200 online, lost it all. Friend helped me get them back + $50. I lost that $50, went broke online. I then used full tilt points to revive my bankroll by playing 50 ftps daily dollar satellites and daily dollar tournaments, and play for $26 satellite tokens, and as I was reviving it, I studied poker books and others experiences and hands, and grinded microstakes and never went broke again. Then Black Friday occurred, I haven't played poker for over a year and half. I recently decided to grind live in Hollywood Park Casino and Commerce Casino. I used the same set of skills, knowledge, I've been playing $1/$2 stake and I am crushing them easily since they are only equivalent to 2NL-10NL online. I believe I have mastered $1/$2 stake since I profited almost $5k. I am ready to move to $2/$4.
Advices based on my experience
1. Bankroll Management
Before considering how many buy-ins you should have, you should ask yourself "What kind of player are you?" Are you an aggressive player? tight player? Do you have good tilt control and management? Do you loosen or tighten up from facing bad beats, card dead, or having big stack in cash games? Do bad beats affect your play?
If you are an aggressive player, you should have more buy-ins. If you are a tight player, you can manage brm with 20 buy-ins in cash games, 40 buy-ins in sngs. I used 120 buy-ins for sngs and move back down when I drop down to 100 buy-ins. I played $5.5 sngs when I have $660 but consider dropping down to $2.25 if I drop down to $550 because if I lose 20 buy-ins, I would tell myself that I am either running extremely bad or there's a leak in my game but either way, drop down and grind my way back to 120 buy-ins of $5.5, which is $660. I used sng brm system to cash games and it's been working well for me.
I am an aggressive spewtard player who couldn't control tilt very well. I would bluff and semi-bluff so many times like there's no tomorrow. Learning curve was hectic. So it turned out that to me, I had to use 120 buy-ins and move back down when I reach 100 buy-ins. This has been working successfully.
Everyone is different, so everyone will have their own level of management. When I initially lost $200 online, I was using Ferguson's 20 buy-in brm rule, which made me fail big time because I was comparing myself to Ferguson, accomplished professional poker player who has mastered the game from low to high stakes, whereas I am a newbie(still am) and never accomplished nowhere near his level. Another thing part of bankroll management is, YOU MUST LEARN HOW TO MOVE DOWN. There is NO SHAME in moving down. What’s the worst that can happen in moving down? If your reasoning is that you won’t profit as much as when you played in higher stake, then you are viewing this game based on $$ instead of blinds and buy-ins.
2. Time Management
Again, you must ask yourself what kind of player you are in terms of emotion, personality, tilt control, etc. How much time do you have? I personally like to give myself an option to play upto 24 hours. I am a type of person who used to tilt crazy and can't play my game optimally if I am losing. On the other hand, when I am winning, my ego got in the way like I am the king of the table and that nobody can mess with me. Based on my personality, I've decided that the best way for me to manage my time was based on my losses. I set a limit of 2-3 buy-ins. If I lose 2-3 buy-ins, even within 5 minutes, I would just leave no matter what. On these days, I would tell myself that either I played horribly, or I am cursed and destined to lose on those days no matter what I do and how perfectly I play, I won't win anything on those days. Even fishes and donks have their winning days. However, if I am winning, I will stay there as long as I can, whether it be 10 hours or 20 hours or until I feel like I am not playing my best anymore or I ran into a huge hit to lose some chunk of my winnings. Inspired by Phil Laak's challenge of 115 hours, I decided to keep playing as long as i am winning. Longest I’ve ever played was from 7pm to 9am, 14 hours w le my shortest session was less than 5 minutes.. If you are winning, you should play as long as you can while if you are losing, you should cut it short even if u just got there. Treat yourself with tasty meals and food at casinos to keep yourself going. Advice, don’t drink alcohol if you believe it’ll affect your play. I tend to loosen up when I am drinking. Keypoint here is, maximize your winning session by playing as long as you can while minimize your losing session. Sounds easy in theory but it will take strong discipline to do this. Think about it. If you’re winning, then others are losing. Most don’t have discipline to quit and they’re wanting your money back. They are not likely to play their best A game. Take ADVANTAGE of this. This is the only reason why I am not able to have scheduled time of playing because I feel that if I set a schedule to how long I should play for, then I’m only increasing my losing session when running bad or at best, break even, while cutting my winning session when I am running hot. Some players have good tilt control and can play their A game even if they lose. Then scheduled sessions will work for them. This is currently my leak and I tend to fix this by playing tournaments to learn how to play A game even after facing beats and tilting situations since you cannot leave in middle of tournaments. But until I fix this, I am better off just quitting based on buy-in loss while staying as long as I can if I’m winning. It's very important to have alternate activities to do in your life. When I lose 2-3 buy-ins, I tell myself that today is not my day and I have better things to do with my life than being a degenerate who continuously play poker under tilted influence. Make yourself a list of things to do, such as movies, sports, video games, sex, karaoke, tv, etc. Gambling degenerates don't have anything better in their lives, which is why they mourn over their losses and continuously play under tilted influence regardless of how much they've lost. Don't be one of them. You can always come back next time and win.
3. Table Selection and Time selection
I personally like to play live during Friday nights and weekends. It’s the time where lot of fishes and donks who don’t even have half of knowledge of game of mine play. Just remember, there are players who are worse than you. Your objective is to make money. Prey on players and tables who are there to have fun and also players full of ego who think they know what they’re doing but in reality they don’t. Pick the tables who like to whine and talk lot of shit. These are type of players who tilt easily where you can take advantage of if you take some chunk of their stacks. Time selection will vary based on where you live. But I live in Los Angeles and lot of donks and fishes come to play between Friday night to Saturday night and in some casinos with hotels, upto Sunday morning and afternoon. You must figure out when is the likely best time where lot of horrible players will play. I’ve played during day times of weekdays and my win rate wasn’t great. There tend to be lot of grinders on weekdays around where I live.
4. Study, Study, Study
Let’s face it. Unless you’re making a living off poker and balling, you need to study this game. Even professionals like Hevad Khan keeps track of his games and hands. He studies the hands he had against Barry Greenstein. But even if you are making living off poker, you will still end up studying to get better. Do not let your ego get in your way. I admit that when I first played poker, my ego was heavily in the way and whenever I won and had winning sessions, I assumed that I’m winning because I know what I’m doing and I am the best player, while when I’m losing, I just justify my losing session as bad run of cards and donks and fishes getting lucky on me. This mindsets gotta go and be gone. You must study this game. I’ve studied this by reading poker books, filtering out what can be useful, what’s not, etc. I’ve used this forums and saw many hand analysis. I’ve seen many awkward spots when I personally don’t even know what to do or what advices to give based on ideal and logical reasonings. Simply tell yourself, why are there players horrible than you? Because you have more knowledge about the game than them. Why are there players who are better than you. Simply because they have more knowledge than you. Time and experience doesn’t make you better. Increased, applied knowledge with experience makes you better. As you study, you will eventually learn what are effective, useful books and tips while what are useless ones. Studying is the only way to get better. Without studying and improving yourself, you will always be where you’re at. I haven’t studied much since Black Friday and my skill level is only at microstakes where I am good enough to grind microstakes online and lowest stake live. I have to study and practice to get better and reach higher stakes. No matter how well you apply first three advices of this thread, if you do not study, you’ll always be where you’re at if you’re a break-even player or slightly profiting player, or your bankroll would just bleed slowly if you’re a losing player.
The best book I’ve ever read that was most influential to my poker career was probably Treat Poker Like a Business by Dusty Schmidt(Leatherass9)
Software: HEM but PT3 works fine.
Software is a must-have IMO as an online poker player. While it’s not a software that can make you automatically become a winner player, it will give you a good blueprint of how decisions should be calculated based on and it can help you detect where your leaks are. It’s upto the individual to utilize it and fix themselves.
I hope this can be helpful and if there's anyone who can detect leak with my advices or dispute it, feel free to do so. These are just advices I've been using and acquired based on my experience and studying. I am always open to see if there are better methods and advices to improve my metagame efficiently.
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