The Lure of Hold'Em

Lonesome Gambler said:
In my opinion, poker is much more frustrating because the strategy is less well-defined. You can take a severe ass-beating while counting cards and not worry too much because you know your skill level is adequate for the game you're playing.
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Actually, I find it more frustrating when I lose at BJ when I know that I still made the right play. With poker, I know it is my fault and I can improve.

Lonesome Gambler said:
With poker, there are many more variables at work, and psychology becomes a big factor as well. In my opinion, BJ is much more fun than poker (probably because poker is incredibly boring), but being competent at poker is probably a necessary skill in any AP's toolkit.
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BJ is pretty darn boring because every play is reduced to a set of mechanical rules. There is little to no thinking involved and certainly no room for creativity.

Lonesome Gambler said:
Playing even a slightly +EV game of poker is a great way to utilize downtime in a casino (unless you like taking naps in the sportsbook) and poker rooms occasionally have valuable promotions that you would be wise to take advantage of.
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I would agree on this point.

Lonesome Gambler said:
I will say though that I believe that limit poker is the way to go for blackjack players, as you're dealing with a much clearer strategy and essentially just playing off of odds. With no-limit, you can experience a much higher win rate, but you'll need to become a pretty solid player to make it worth the difference in WR from limit poker.
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I am still sorting this out, but think that Sit-N-Go has some interesting possibilities.
 
StandardDeviant said:
Actually, I find it more frustrating when I lose at BJ when I know that I still made the right play. With poker, I know it is my fault and I can improve.

BJ is pretty darn boring because every play is reduced to a set of mechanical rules. There is little to no thinking involved and certainly no room for creativity.
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I was gonna say that in general, to each his or her own. I was pretty surprised to hear everyone being against playing poker, but then again, this is a blackjack website. Maybe their thinking is that if you are a blackjack player, you like it because of the rigid rules and strategies. And holdem in general has a lot of gray areas. To me, it's mostly a game of understanding your opponent, having patience, and of course getting a good "poker face." I feel almost that good liars make for good poker players.

I would think that most poker players think that blackjack is boring. I can tell who's a poker player when they come to the blackjack table. besides the chip shuffling, they like to put out big bets at random times, they cheer me on when I put out my big bet when the count is high(good cover) and when they're down to their last couple hundred bucks, they like to bet it all at once. Like their calling "all in" and trying to put pressure on the dealer or the cards.

If you like it, then play it. I'm learning about craps rights now. I don't really know if it's possible to control the dice, but I do know that it is a lot of fun, and seems to be a lot more comaraderie between you and the other players, as well the crew. Vs blackjack, getting the jerkwad ploppies yelling at you to not split tens, don't take the dealer's bust card, etc, and the fake dealers who smile at you and then pref. shuffle on you.
 
StandardDeviant said:
BJ is pretty darn boring because every play is reduced to a set of mechanical rules. There is little to no thinking involved and certainly no room for creativity.
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I would have to disagree with this statement. Open your eyes... There is much room for Creativity AND Thinking.
 
It's a job

If I'm playing 6 deck shoes, counting (and converting to TC), playing a lot of indices, making conversation with the hot girl next to me AND staying under the radar that's about my limit for multi-tasking!

Billy C1
 
The other frustrating thing you have to consider is how the learning curve is much bigger than it seems due to the rake. What I mean is that you might get good enough to consistently beat a $2/4 limit HE game at the local casino, but your casino rakes 10% up to $5 plus a $1 jackpot. Can you consistently beat your opponents and still maintain a win rate high enough to cover the rake? The answer is to move to a limit where the rake is much smaller in comparison to the size of the average pot. $3/6 limit might even be high enough, and certainly $5/10. But when you move up to these levels, the competition is so much better than at $2/4 and you're now making a smaller win rate due to better competition!

You could move to online poker instead of live poker (I prefer live) in order to increase your hands/win rate and deal with lower rakes, but now you're playing against players that are using tracking software and have a huge edge over you even if you're somewhat skilled. So now the only way to make any real money online is to multitable using tracking software while getting rakeback from your host. It's hardly even poker any more!

I like Flash's game plan of specializing in a different game. Most B&M casinos offer Pot-limit Omaha/8, which is poorly played by nearly everyone. You have reckless gamblers with no clue how to play the game, Texas HE players that want to try something new and try to play Omaha the same way, and you have a few skilled players that you can soon recognize and avoid. And by learning the pot-limit game, your win rate can be plenty high to beat the rake. Of course, the same could be said of NL Texas HE, but my guess is that the average competition at the $1/2NL table is much stronger than the competition at the $2/4PLO/8 table.
 
Poker, specifically online poker, beats out blackjack in that there are much lower bankroll requirements, lower variance, and lower travel expenses. A good multitabling cash game player can make $50 an hour with a $2000 bankroll and a nearly 0% ROR. What can a blackjack player make with a $2000 bankroll and <5% ROR? $1 an hour? I could go on and on about why online poker is a more lucrative form of AP than blackjack...
 
Yeah, but how long does it take one to become a "good" multitabling player? I agree that the BR requirements are much lower and variance is easier to control by getting many hands per hour, but I think it's very hard for someone that doesn't have a very, very solid background in poker to make $50/hr on a $2K BR. Not to mention the fact that you'll absolutely have to use poker tracking software, which I personally feel is akin to cheating, despite it's widespread acceptance.
 
mjbballar23 said:
Poker, specifically online poker, beats out blackjack in that there are much lower bankroll requirements, lower variance, and lower travel expenses. A good multitabling cash game player can make $50 an hour with a $2000 bankroll and a nearly 0% ROR. What can a blackjack player make with a $2000 bankroll and <5% ROR? $1 an hour? I could go on and on about why online poker is a more lucrative form of AP than blackjack...
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You have to be very highly skilled though. You are talking about playing 1/2$ online which is a very tough game. It takes quite a while to get to that level.
 
Playing $1/$2 NL online is almost impossible to beat. The players in that game from what I've seen are the equivalent of the $5/10 NL players at the casino. Unless you're a pro, forget playing that level online. I would say playing online at .25/.50 NL is what you can expect in a $1/$2 NL game at the casino in terms of skill. And may I remind you that poker is a lot of luck too. You can have top pair on the flop and bet all you want and you're still going to have the nitwit who will call with his ace high flush draw and suck out on you after you go all in. I see it every time I play. Also what do you do when you have pocket aces and the other player calls your preflop raise with a pair of 4's and hits a set on the flop. You can't put him on a set of 4's and you know you have top pair so you bet the heck out of it thinking they have the top pair on the board. I see people get killed by that a lot too.
 
1357111317 said:
You have to be very highly skilled though. You are talking about playing 1/2$ online which is a very tough game. It takes quite a while to get to that level.
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OK that is true. It took me 7 months of playing to reach $1/2 online. However, im confident that i can teach almost anyone to beat .1/.25 within a couple weeks and you can still make $15 an hour with only a $400 bankroll.
 
mjbballar23 said:
OK that is true. It took me 7 months of playing to reach $1/2 online. However, im confident that i can teach almost anyone to beat .1/.25 within a couple weeks and you can still make $15 an hour with only a $400 bankroll.
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$15/hr playing .1/.25?!! Unless you're playing a lot of tables, this is very hard to do.
 
Thunder said:
$15/hr playing .1/.25?!! Unless you're playing a lot of tables, this is very hard to do.
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I was assuming a winrate of 2 big bets per 100 hands and playing 14 tables at once. That should earn you about $10 an hour and rakeback should earn you another $5 an hour.
 
StandardDeviant said:
After a year and a half of playing around with BJ I find myself being drawn to poker. I've been reading and playing online, but have not yet set foot in a B&M poker room. That will change soon.

Things I find appealing about poker in my very-much-a-newbie state:
  1. No need to run around in the shadows trying to hid from the casino pit boss
  2. Less of a need to lie to others about what you are doing
  3. The game is more complex, and therefore offers more of a lifetime challenge
  4. Mechanical shuffle machines are a virtue, not a vice
  5. There are more good books to read
  6. There are more opportunities to play given the boom in online sites
  7. There are more opportunities for tournaments
  8. You can watch it on TV every day (whether you want to is another question)
  9. Less starting capital is required to play the game with an advantage
  10. Variance is lower for low-stakes players
  11. "Surrender" is always offered :)
  12. The probability of winning is, I think, higher if one plays attention to details and really develops the required skills
Let's see where this goes...
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Going back to the original question . . .

I think that poker does have that attraction for many of the reasons given above. I looked at it and spent around four months earlier this year reading up on the game and playing reasonably regularly, both across a table and online.

But it isn't for me though. I found that I don't have the patience to deal with the inevitable bad beats or the frustration of seeing loose/manic/any-two-can-win players clean up with monotonous regularity as a result of 10-1+ draws coming good. I reviewed my 12 weeks or so results, and the frequency of some low probability hands turning up (the most notable was a quad on the flop, 407-1) was staggering.

I think the american airlines all in play just about sums the game up. If you go all in and there are no callers you are 100% odds on to win the pot. With one underpair caller it reduces to 70%, with two it becomes a coin toss at 49% and if there are three callers with underpairs depite having the best hand you then become odds-on to lose.

I'll stick with Blackjack.

Good luck
 
mjbballar23 said:
I was assuming a winrate of 2 big bets per 100 hands and playing 14 tables at once. That should earn you about $10 an hour and rakeback should earn you another $5 an hour.
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If you're playing 14 tables at once, you're just asking for trouble as you won't be able to concentrate well enough to notice the tendencies of other players.
 
Thunder said:
If you're playing 14 tables at once, you're just asking for trouble as you won't be able to concentrate well enough to notice the tendencies of other players.
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That is not necessarily true. The heads up display helps with that a lot.

I took a step back recently and played some 2/5 cent NL on stars. I played over 1k hands per hour meaning roughly 16-20 tables at a time. Over 37k hands I won at a rate of 7.76 big bets per hour. This roughly equated to 8$ an hour. Now I am not even that good at poker but t his just goes to show how bad 2/5 actually is and how multitabling is possible.
 
I don't know how u can even fit 16-20 tables on your monitor!!! Every time I try to play more than say 3 games at once I'll hear this beeping letting me know other tables are waiting for me to respond which only further distracts me. If I don't act quick enough, I could end up losing a big hand.
 
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