Poker Advice Needed

[shinyam]

I have been counting cards for several years, and have done modestly well, raking in over 100K. However, recently I have hit a very bad streak, and am tired of all the bad things that come with the game: long drive times, heat, angry ploppies, tedious grinding, huge variance and losing streaks, modest win rates, etc.

I am considering adding poker to my repertoire. I think it's a fun game, but am more interested in whether I can make a decent amount of money from it.

I consider myself to be very dedicated, and willing to put in lots of hours to improve my game. In fact, that is what I do best. I love the challenge of learning something new and complicated, and growing. For this reason, I am a huge chess fan, and achieved the class A level (very strong player).

My questions are:

1)How much money (hourly) can you expect to make after a year or so of experience and study? I would say for blackjack $20-$100, and I am currently making about $50 per hour. I would only be interested in $20 and up.

2)What are the pros and cons of poker compared to blackjack?

3)What is the best way to become a strong player?

4)What are some good resources (websites/books/DVDS) to get me started?

5)Can I make a decent amount of money playing online poker? If so, that would be amazing! No commutes, and play whenever I want at home.

6)Any other comments, suggesions, advice would be appreciated.


Thanks in advance. I am particularly interested in experienced players who have documented a long-term win rate, but would appreciate any good info from all!

 

[WRX]

The profitability of poker depends very, very much on what games are available to you. I proceed on the assumption that online play is pretty much off the table for U.S. players for now. I would not advise placing money with the few rooms that are still operating, because you WILL have difficulty receiving payment and no one knows when the Dept. of Justice might swoop down again. So the questions become, what games are there at the casinos or card rooms near your home, and are you willing to travel to distant destinations and stay there for long periods?

In nearly all discussions of poker, the importance of table selection is underrated. Make no mistake--you will make the bulk of your money by playing basic, solid poker against bad players. The amount that you can add to your expectation by refining your game to a high level of skill, while playing against other solid players, is quite small by comparison.

For some players, winning money is not the goal. Being able to defeat other good players is the goal. So you need to begin by deciding what's important to you. As far as I'm concerned, those who want to show their prowess against the best in the world should play chess. Poker is about money.

Some pros of poker are that the bankroll requirement is relatively small, and you don't have to worry about heat.

Some cons are that in many parts of the country, the games are simply too small to be of interest to the professional gambler--defining a professional as someone who wants to make a good living, as opposed to just scraping by; that you may rather soon grow bored with the game, because live poker doesn't offer the action of blackjack, instead you have to have the patience to throw away hand after hand, potentially for hours on end; and that it's very difficult to know your true edge, because there's no way that you can objectively test your skill and it takes a long time before you are statistically justified in drawing conclusions from your results.

 

[Craps Master]

In nearly all discussions of poker, the importance of table selection is underrated. Make no mistake--you will make the bulk of your money by playing basic, solid poker against bad players. The amount that you can add to your expectation by refining your game to a high level of skill, while playing against other solid players, is quite small by comparison.

Got any numbers you would assign to these conjectures?

 

[nicetrades200303]

This thread should probably be in Miscellaneous/Other Games.

And in case you missed it, read this other thread as well.

http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=23327

1) How much money (hourly) can you expect to make after a year or so of experience and study? I would say for blackjack $20-$100, and I am currently making about $50 per hour. I would only be interested in $20 and up.

It depends on which type of game you like to play, no-limit hold ‘em or fixed-limit hold ‘em. I can speak only from fixed-limit experience, as I don’t play no-limit.

I started out as a fish playing 6-12; lost several hundred dollars each session for about three or four sessions; searched the Internet and read books and forums and improved my game; won enough to have a bankroll to move up to 8-16; won enough to have a bankroll to move up to 20-40; have been winning about one big bet per hour ($40) and now sometimes taking shots at the 40-80 game; playing experience was six months at 6-12, ten months at 8-16, two and a half years and still going at 20-40. (I don't play full-time but the hours played make a decent sample size.)

2) What are the pros and cons of poker compared to blackjack?

I can’t think of that many. One thing is certain: They both have downswings that will make you doubt yourself and wanting to quit the game. The one important pro of blackjack vs. poker is that, with blackjack I can play like a robot and just count and push out the bets and let the math do the work. But you can’t do that in poker: You always have to focus on your opponents and learn their tendencies and adjust to the flow of the game. And as you move up to the upper mid-stakes (40-80), the general pool of players are better so game selection becomes even more important.

3) What is the best way to become a strong player?

Read books on the fundamentals of the game. Read forums (twoplustwo comes to mind) and post hands. Write down any mistakes during a session, reflect on them, improve on them.

4) What are some good resources (websites/books/DVDS) to get me started?

Winning Low Limit Hold ‘em by Lee Jones; Small Stakes Hold ‘em by Ed Miller; Advanced Limit Hold ‘em Strategy by Barry Tanenbaum; Winning in Tough Hold ‘Em Games by Nick “Stoxtrader” Grudzien; Limit Hold ‘em: winning short-handed strategies by Terry Borer; Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo; The Poker Mindset by Ian Taylor;

Small Stakes Hold ‘em by Ed Miller and Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo are must reads.

 

[UK-21]

. . . and that it's very difficult to know your true edge, because there's no way that you can objectively test your skill and it takes a long time before you are statistically justified in drawing conclusions from your results.

Amen to that. The only gem I could possibly add to the pointers given by other players is to keep meticulous records of everything so you can draw the numbers out of the bottom. I've spoken to or corresponded with many "winning" players who, when pressed, it's quite clear don't - and so a lot of what they say you have to treat as anecdotal rather than based on hard numbers facts. Microsoft Excel is a godsend.

I play most evenings online for the entertainment, and the challenge of the numbers, for pennies.I am not a winning player, despite improving significantly over the last nine months, and my win (read loss) rate at the cash games and SnGs I've played is around -8% and -4% respectively. Bearing in mind the rake on cash games is c16% (measured againt profit on winning hands, not pot value), and the buy-ins at the micro SnG levels is 20%, I must be doing something right although crossing into the black continues to evade me.

As I've said to others, my results don't qualify me to offer advice. I certainly wouldn't dream of playing poker for, or to subsidise, a living although of course it all depends on personal circumstances. Got a wife/partner, 2.4 kids and a mortgage to support and it's probably best to give it a miss. Single, and all you've got to do is fill your belly with food, your car with gas and stay out of the rain at nights, and it looks more attractive and do-able. Somebody wrote on the forum a while back, that they knew several "pro" poker players who frequently slept in their cars rather than spend $25 on a motel room when on the road. Where do you draw a line as to what's a fair-return lifestyle? All very subjective of course.

Best wishes with it.

 

[UK-21]

In nearly all discussions of poker, the importance of table selection is underrated. Make no mistake--you will make the bulk of your money by playing basic, solid poker against bad players. The amount that you can add to your expectation by refining your game to a high level of skill, while playing against other solid players, is quite small by comparison.

Yes . . . the dynamics of the S-curve, and the law of diminishing returns, kick in - by diminishing returns I mean the return of improvement for the amount of time invested to achieve it, nothing to do with what you win or lose. Arguably how long it takes, or how many hands need to be played, to get to the point where the curve starts becoming more horizontal than vertical?

 

[moo321]

Poker games are getting worse. They were much better a few years ago. If you can find juicy games, it's quite good.

 

[PonyPrincess]

If part of your motivation in playing poker is to lessen variance you're looking at the wrong game. Just consider the fact that you're going to get 25 hands in an hour so playing full time you can have years where you are breakeven from just variance in juicy games and that's if you're REALLY good.

 

[Craps Master]

If part of your motivation in playing poker is to lessen variance you're looking at the wrong game. Just consider the fact that you're going to get 25 hands in an hour so playing full time you can have years where you are breakeven from just variance in juicy games and that's if you're REALLY good.

This is extremely unlikely. Looking at my stats, it would be over a 3 sigma event for me to break-even over the course of an entire year, and I'm not even REALLY good and I don't exclusively play in juicy games. Over the course of multiple years... not going to happen.

In my experience, the variance in blackjack is much worse than in poker. But, some of this depends on the type of poker you play, and the type of blackjack you play.

 

[SleightOfHand]

Poker games are getting worse. They were much better a few years ago. If you can find juicy games, it's quite good.

Maybe the games are not as good as they were a few years ago, but the games are definitely still full of bad players and a decent profit is out there to be made.

If part of your motivation in playing poker is to lessen variance you're looking at the wrong game. Just consider the fact that you're going to get 25 hands in an hour so playing full time you can have years where you are breakeven from just variance in juicy games and that's if you're REALLY good.

As crapsmaster said, I don't see that amount of variance in the games I have been playing. Ive only been doing this 5 months, but from looking at my results, it looks somewhat difficult for a good player to have a losing quarter, let alone year. The field is just SO terrible, the edge that solid players have must be fairly substantial. This is all just based on a little bit of experience, so my opinion could be way off.

 

[PonyPrincess]

Considering when US had online 20k hand breakeven stretches happen ALL the time even in easy games, and 20 buyin downswings are pretty common as well. So you could have a 25 week breakeven playing 40hours a week (which realistically you'll only get if you live in Vegas).

 

[Craps Master]

Considering when US had online 20k hand breakeven stretches happen ALL the time even in easy games, and 20 buyin downswings are pretty common as well. So you could have a 25 week breakeven playing 40hours a week (which realistically you'll only get if you live in Vegas).

No. You're comparing apples to oranges.

 

[SleightOfHand]

Real data

I had a couple short vacations in the last 3 months, but here are a couple screenshots from an iphone app that keeps great track of poker data. I backlogged data starting July 1. The tip data is just estimated when I put it in, I estimated about $2/hr, but it's probably a bit higher than that.

So given the given data, for 100 hours of play, we have an EV of $4872 with a SD of $1918.50, which would mean it would be almost 2.5 SDs to break even for that 100 hour period, which almost never happens, let alone 1000 hours, which would be almost 8 SDs. One thing I would like to know is the standard error for the data, as 350 hours of play is still not a lot. According to the data, Saturday is considered one of the worst days to play which is obviously not true (I must have had a few bad beats).

 

[Craps Master]

Poker Income Pro... good choice. AT&T... bad choice.

Standard error is sigma/sqrt(n). For 370 hours, that's 53.62/sqrt(370) = 2.79. However, this assumes a normal distribution. I'm not sure that 370 hours of poker would qualify. For very large n the distribution should approach a normal distribution, but I'm not sure at what point that occurs in poker. It's further from normal for tournaments, but still not normal for small samples of cash game play.

But, your data confirms my own, that it's very improbable to be a REALLY good player and have a losing year at live poker. It's definitely more likely for people who play other types of poker, such as limit stud or pot-limit omaha. Even limit hold'em probably leaves skilled players with a material chance of being a loser over the course of a year.

 

[Jack_Black]

why is this thread in the card counting section?