Thursday, May 04, 2006

Transference

Bluff kindly gave me a kick to put up a new post, so you have him to blame. I really enjoy 2+2. Not in any productive way, to do with actually playing poker and improving my game, rather just all the shit and patheticness and noise. It seems very similar to a pornography addiction, without worrying about being caught out by the wife. The HSNL forum is a sewer. Most posts revolve around people guessing what the other posters will say and posting it first, or alternatively copying the poster above them, adding no text or value whatsoever. Or alternatively copying the poster above them, adding no text or value whatsoever.

(Who says there isn’t a rich seam of humour in what I post? Oh, hi Wintermute :-)

The PLO forum has got better. Okay, it has got *more*. Most of the posts are still mediocre at best, and the majority of folk there are probably in what David Young would christen “they can count past 13 stage”. BTW for PLO fans Bluff did post an interesting drawing hand problem. I didn’t necessarily agree with all his answers, but I did agree with the point he was getting at. Worth a serious look.

What has really got me very amused recently is a *serious* post on “what I should do with my life” issues. It seems that earning $200K+ isn’t enough for these young kids today, they want to be entrepreneur Captains of Industry too. And surely their skills of fleecing WPT worshipping donks will easily translate into broking/real-estate/CEO stardom? In true 2+2 GroupThink style, responder-after-responder genuinely believed that this question had some validity and was not the product of a too-much-too-soon insanity.

The short answer, would be grow up. I mean this literally. Life is the best teacher and no amount of “I am sure it’s a transferable skill” will actually replace *doing* the damned thing in the first place. You want to work in finance. Well do it. Just don’t think that knowing what a continuation bet is will be a worthy substitute. But there’s more. First off, don’t suppose that because you are a winning player today that you will be a winning player in ten years time. The game we play is almost unrecognisable from that I learnt almost a decade ago, except for the pasteboard bit. The good players evolve line is nice, but some players are just right people in right time and right place beneficiaries, no matter their winrate. There used to be a lot of marsupials on this planet, and they used to be very successful, until they met up with placentate mammals. How many marsupial lions have you seen recently?

The most ridiculous assumption is that poker success has an underlying set of traits or characteristics that would transfer to business success. Now for some real world players this may be true. Some of the skills and meta-game understandings that folk that understand Gary Caron’s old RPG aphorism of “being in the entertainment business” may be of some use en route to the Board Room. But being able to 8 table for 12 hours without going on tilt or insane? Profitable, yes. Transferable, no. Business will always be about people and how you handle them and unfortunately those fleshy, carbon-based things will always a key component. And saying “lol, u suck” may not be the best way to engage with them on the path to wealth and success.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave,

Just checked by. Thanks for the plug for my drawing thread and for taking the hint to make a new post here. You bring up some interesting points. I do think the PLO forum has gotten a little better. I have mentioned before I think that one thing it has going for it is that it is in fact smaller without as many new threads being made, which means that the ones that do tend to get more serious discussion of all the issues in a situation. Ray Zee bemoaned recently that he missed the old days of HSNL (before there was a forum by that name actually), where everyone wasn't so eager to constantly post hands themselves as to thoroughly discuss the fewer threads made back then. I can attest that the quality of discussion in that it produced by the end of it all the relevant factors and the correct decision that should have been made, was indeed better than now in some respects if you look in the very old archives in the digests of the early years.

Which brings up the HSNL forum you mention as well. I post in it regularly and I don't think it is quite as bad as you do, but there is the persistent problem of "me too" posts without disussing reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with a play. The problem with many posters there, is that although they may have read that forum for long enough to understand all the general principles of NL, they just can't determine which is the most important in a given situation. Also many of them are looking to learn "standard lines" that are exploitable by better players. I mean when I play NL, I can just tell when a player is trying to exercise pot control. The key question is he is just trying to keep the pot smaller and would fold TPTK if presented with a big raise, or would he just like to keep it smaller, but is calling his stack off with it anyway. Once you know the answer to that for a given player, i.e. whether he will go to the felt with TPTK/Overpair of QQ+, then you know how to play him.

I too am amused by the youngsters who are making good money and posting that same old shit 1000 other players have before:

1) should I quit college to go pro
2) there has to be more to life than making money
3) i need to invest my winning in a business in case the poker boom goes bust.

They are taking themselves way too seriously for their age, and should focus on completing college and making a nice part-time income, or if they can't stand it, going "pro" and not looking back. However, most of them even though they have read and know how to manage a roll, actually won't, because they will never drop down on a bad streak and will ride the top limit they got to all the way to the basement, accelerated by tilt. I have discussed bankroll management on Peter Birk's blog in the past few months and it is very important. One guy that worked his way up the ladder to the big games posted a thread in the psych forum about going pro and that he had $40K. I told him as a test to see if he should, then to do as his family suggested and invest the bulk of it, leaving himself a $4K roll with which to start back at the NL200 level. I said if he could manage that roll and work his way back up (and you can do it very quick), then he's good enough to go pro, otherwise not. However I told him that most of us were rooting for all the guys like him to go pro and dump their rolls into the High Stakes poker economy after which they will be saying "you want fries with that?".

The posts that crack me up the most, including one in the past few months by a regular HSNL poster and good player, is the "there's moer to life than making money", or "I don't know if I can keep playing poker and making all this money without becoming bored" shit. Sure there's more to life, but you have to earn a living somehow, and unless the US govt totally fcks us somehow with both an anti-online law and effective enforcement (in which case Manchester doesn't soound too bad -how expensive to live there?), then poker is the way to go as far as I am concerned. KKF said recently there that multitabling for 8 hours a day didn't sound that bad for the next 20 years, and for good money I certainly agree.

Finally, you point about poker skills not necessarily transferring to business is spot on from what I've seen. In fact the vast majority of people who are highly successful in one field of business and then decide to "branch out", have a dismal record of failure. Although the relative few who can do that seem to be destined to become titans of industry and have the Midas touch.

Finally I want to emphasize something again for all the PLO players here. I love PLO and would play it everyday all day if the games were that good. But the fact is that they aren't. That doesn't mean that they are terrible, but just that although you aren't sitting at tables full of top pros (usually just the usual nut peddlars, 1 "good lag" and the rest mediocre), the bad players as you move up become less bad and it takes more effort to get their money. So while I think it is valuable to develop your PLO skill so that when you do see a good table you can jump in, I will say as I have before (and Big Dave seems to agree), that NL is where the money and lower variance is, and where you can move up the ladder faster.

BluffThis!

Anonymous said...

Interesting posts, guys. I read through your (Dave's) blog regularly, but haven't participated until now. I thought I could a different perspective.

My skill-level is nowhere near that of either of you, but I'm still able to make a decent wage at small stakes limit. Even only playing 3-6 and 5/10, the achievable hourly rate can really distort ones perception of money, both in absolute terms, as well as relative. For example, it's really, really hard to get motivated to job hunt for a minimum wage job stocking shelves when I can rather effortlessly make 7+x that. On the other hand, poker has allowed me the freedom to take my time (for better or for worse) with regards to getting my act together and get through college.

It's because of this distortion that I think ultimately causes people my age to get ahead of themselves. Let's face it: with rare exception, people in their late teens-mid 20s just aren't "supposed" to be pulling in the kind of money made possibly by poker. I suspect this leads to an inflated ego, and perhaps an over-estimation of one's self-worth. I suspect I phrased the latter part poorly, but it's basically taking my problem with jobs available to me to the next level. And let's face it, most people (males especially) my age really need no help with ego-boosting, or the sense of invincibility that seems to permeate the collective consciousness.

With this ego-boost comes the feeling that anything is possible. And perhaps more to the point: everything will be as "easy" as they found poker to be. The sense of reality is non-existant in most cases. On the other hand, I do agree with the need to look beyond poker. It's a boom, and like booms are want to do, it'll likely bust at some point. I - and I suspect others in a better position than myself - don't want to take the chance that the bust will be the end of online poker. Fatalistic? Most likely, but I do believe it's something that needs to stay in the back of the mind.

Keep in mind, I haven't read the entire thread being referred to, but I did read the first few posts. Frankly, I agree that it's a bit disconcerting: 20-somethings thinking they can just jump from niche to niche and dominate like they did the felt. And I suspect a lot are in for a rude awakening. However, I think the times play some role in this. Namely, the big tech boom was in full force while a lot of us were starting to "come of age." Even after the bubble burst, the real estate market was still raging. When fortunes are being created so (seemingly) effortlessly, a lot of people tend to think that it'll A) always be that way and B) always be that easy. I have enough background trading the markets to know that that's not true.... but they don't.

Sorry, I'm rambling. Don't really have much of a point, but just trying to show the other side of things. It's late, I'm tired, so I'll leave it at that.

Take care, guys.

SteveL91

Anonymous said...

Well Dave, nice to finally get a post from you. Every morning at work, I do a small bit of surfing to break me in gently to the day, and I always look on your blog. Needless to say, I've been very disappointed recently !
So today was like a tonic - and the added bonus of a comment from Bluff. As usual I agree with what you say, probably because I'm about the same age as you, so maybe we're just turning into grumpy old men.
I have give up on 2+2 also except for the entertainment value. About 6 months ago, in a moment of weakness, I made what I thought was a clearly ironic reply to one of these guys wondering "If I should fold Aces preflop". Anyway I wasn't expecting the barrage of criticism from people who actually took me seriously. I decided then that most of these people live in a different world to me, so I just gave up posting.
So what's my point you might ask ?
Don't have one really, just that a lot of these kids are more interested in talking the talk; as you say they just need to grow up.

Why do you not post PLO hands any more ?
Are you just getting bored with it ?
As I said before, I've learned heaps about PLO from your blog (it helps me get through the day).
On another note, I consider myself a poker player at heart but I've taken bridge up again recently. You know it's very addictive and intelligent play is rewarded. You could do worse !

Sorry for rambling.

Kevin

Anonymous said...

Welcome back, I've been wondering where you went.

Your comments on the overall quality of discussion on 2+2 are dead on. I have noticed a significant decline in the quality of both original posts and replies.
Why?

A partial answer may be the universe of posters has expanded dramatically while the number of thoughtfull posters has declined. Three years ago many posters were serious about improving their game and were happy to discuss hands. The number of users was smaller so you had a small universe of more serious players who had to exert some effort to find 2+2. Today the number of users has exploded and the quality to noise ratio has become totally out of whack. I can't see a way to turn the situation around.

As for the "should I go pro" comments. The one time I made the mistake of getting involved in one of these tought me to stay away from people who only want posts that support their decision.

The posters were all talking about how they were killing whatever level thay were playing at and how $35,000 to $50,000 a year was great money. I made the mistake of pointing out that those numbers may sound great to a 20 year old college student but that it would be impossible to raise a family on those numbers. Of course - the idiot I am - I mentioned that I spend about 25K just to send my kids to a private elementary school. There must have been 25 flame posts about how out of touch I am or how could some rich guy possibly understand their situation. Only one poster had the brains/guts to ask how I could earn so much money as to afford that tuition. When I explained that I have spent the last 25 years working my butt off and building a business - they were all uninterested. Afterall who wants to hear about hard work when the possibility of an easy score is dangling in front of you.

Big Dave D said...

SteveL,

Great first comment, especially as you are from "the other side". Dont be a stranger.

gl

Dave

Big Dave D said...

Bluff,

You dont want to live in Manchester. Seriously tho, eastern europe must be the location for no ties poker pros. I disagree with the 8 table thing. Even for mega money it *must* become soul destroying, but hey these kids today seem to think it is sustainable.

AJ,

Welcome back. I'm not talking about bad business decision making. I'm talking about the danger of presuming that excellence in one thing is either (a) permenent (b) any damned use in other fields.

gl

dd

Big Dave D said...

Kevin and Anon,

I did warn you the posting would be more relaxed. Get a RSS reader :) As to why the lack of PLO posts...could be something to do with that I havent played it this year. OK, just once for fun but thats a different post.

gl

dd

steve said...

Dave, the disinterest must be increasing – not much effort on the title this time. Or are you dumbing-down for me?

I disagree about the transference of skills, I think there are plenty. Not least the tendency of successful poker players to separate the decision from the outcome. This is failure of decision-making is so many areas, not least. it appears. in the FA. Any hardened poker player would have spotted McClaren only had a strong chip position because he doubled on a runner runner and then tripled up when he pushed all in against a set needing a middle pin, which he duly hit. They’d have selected the TAG & consistent Martin’O’Neil a proven winner over 100,000 matches. Decision-making is laughable in this industry, they always overweight recent information, they are swayed, on a multi-million pound decision, to a candidate who was 20-1 before he streaked. Sport is an industry where we witness first hand the key decisions made, and how successful they are and what are the drivers. I’m sure there are many such failures of logic across many industries.

Also the analytical skills developed, the ability to classify situations and discern subtly between them and to know how, if at all, to value and respond to them are likely to be valued in other domains. Essentially, the process of analysing a decision and the courage to commit to it, are worthy characteristics. There are still more I’m sure, in particular, hopefully, an emotional maturity in the face of testing, stressful circumstances must also be a plus.

I would say, though, that I don’t consider it to be worth the trade-off. The decay of current skills and the failure to grow others because of intense devotion to one axis of problem solving is far too heavy a price to pay imo.

As for 2+2 I post/read there a few weeks a year, I usually benefit from doing so & should do more, but it is too much of a clique for me, and I’d not want to be dragged into that mindset. When I see the quote, and the quote of the quote, I just think ‘sad MF’. If a passer buy puts up a question which is either stupid, or was at some stage designed by a stupid play, it’s a feeding frenzy to get in there and go all Paul Phillips on the poor bastard. Some real twats, but also some sharp cookies.

Big Dave D said...

Chaos,

Of course transference has a subtler meaning as well, but I admit its not on a par with my usual science/15th century philosophy/90's rap stuff :)

Decision making in poker online is too much in the abstract. Business decisions are always "dirty". SO although the skill is useful, its only a fraction of what is required. And it could be argued that some succesful online players are not so much making great decisions but rather pattern matching.

As to 2+2, some forums are better than others. The limit one, although cliquey, is a damn sight better than the HSNL one, or at least it used to be.

gl

dd

steve said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
steve said...

Naturally I agree with you on the subject of pattern matching, and, of course it is a large part of any poker player's d-m strategy, but it certainly isn't the whole story: many players have to tune in. There will always be those who will be able to apply these insights into other domains and those who will not.

In particular I recall someone with whom I was acquainted who was much revered in the field of decision-science. He was significantly overweight, and passed away recently in his late forties, early fifties (though I'm as yet unaware of the cause). I'd always thought it strange and ironic, especially, when I viewed others who clearly embraced what they learnt and tried to integrate their skills into their own life. Von Neumann sprang to mind, whose wife, as I'm sure you know, poignantly reflected that he could count everything except calories.

Oh well, maybe it's just me who wouldn't have picked McClaren!
(The first & last footy content on your blog?)

Big Dave D said...

Chaos,

You really need the post to see the *surety* with which these folk thought their skills are transferable. I know that when you worked it was in an academic field of sorts. Now clearly, in business, getting the right decision is important...but equally, if strangely more so, implementing the decision is critical. And I'm not sure how masturbating between hands, figuratively and literally, can really help that :)

OK, football. McCLaren is clearly an insane choice. But so was dumping more £ on Ericson when he wasnt performing and was showing a huge amount of disloyalty. In fact the whole process kinda illustrates my point. It wasn't so much the decision that was flawed - although it is - but the process of implementing it that was a disaster. Who - beside Sven - would openly say they had the England job when of all the really good candidates they would be competing against England in the world cup? Bonkers.

Dave

Anonymous said...

chaos,

I could not resist.
"They’d have selected the TAG & consistent Martin’O’Neil a proven winner over 100,000 matches."

Have you considered that they knew that TAG is not enough and LAG is needed. Variance is a friend for some of us ;)

Aksu

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave,

I've recently discovered your blog and have been feverishly scanning old posts and comments for the many wise gems no doubt hidden away!

I must say it is refreshing to see such intelligent and honest discussion about poker on the internet. Unfortunatly I may spoil it a bit with the following (probably basic) Hold'em question, but I would value your opinions...

You are playing a normal handed no-limit hold'em cash game. Both you and your single foe have deep stacks, they have so far called your pre-flop raise of 3x the blind, everyone else (including the blinds) folded.

Using unspecified magical powers, you know your opponent holds two suited cards and the flop has two of their suit, other than that they have no pair and no straight draws. They will pay almost any price to try and hit their flush, and on the flop you have either:

(a) an overpair (pocket As or Ks)
(b) two pair
(c) set (high pair in the hole)

How much do you bet?

If you bet 3/4 pot to a full pot, you deny them the expressed odds to draw. If you overbet the pot, they call and hit (you fold) you've charged them more for the draw but lost more when you have to fold.

If you go all-in they may fold, but you've made less than if you bet the pot and they call and miss, again if they call anyway and hit you've cost yourself more. Sorry if this is worded somewhat confusingly, I'm sure it's actually pretty simple!

Any and all opinions welcomed.

Gl all,

Matt.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave,

I've recently discovered your blog and have been feverishly scanning old posts and comments for the many wise gems no doubt hidden away!

I must say it is refreshing to see such intelligent and honest discussion about poker on the internet. Unfortunatly I may spoil it a bit with the following (probably basic) Hold'em question, but I would value your opinions...

You are playing a normal handed no-limit hold'em cash game. Both you and your single foe have deep stacks, they have so far called your pre-flop raise of 3x the blind, everyone else (including the blinds) folded.

Using unspecified magical powers, you know your opponent holds two suited cards and the flop has two of their suit, other than that they have no pair and no straight draws. They will pay almost any price to try and hit their flush, and on the flop you have either:

(a) an overpair (pocket As or Ks)
(b) two pair
(c) set (high pair in the hole)

How much do you bet?

If you bet 3/4 pot to a full pot, you deny them the expressed odds to draw. If you overbet the pot, they call and hit (you fold) you've charged them more for the draw but lost more when you have to fold.

If you go all-in they may fold, but you've made less than if you bet the pot and they call and miss, again if they call anyway and hit you've cost yourself more. Sorry if this is worded somewhat confusingly, I'm sure it's actually pretty simple!

Any and all opinions welcomed.

Gl all,

Matt.

steve said...

AKsu, harsh - we're not Trinidad & Tobago!

Dave, the point I made was there are transferrable skills - not that internet poker is an enabler for the myriad of requirements needed to succeed or is any substitute for experience.

Matt, hopefully one of the NL boys will give you a response - you might wanna check @ 2+2 (not my mode at the mo)

Anonymous said...

Matt,

In regards to your theoretical question, I will give the general response that if an overbet/push were more likely to elicit a fold than a call, then you should bet the pot to charge them the max price they will pay and because since you will know if they hit their flush, they really have no implied odds.

The question of what to do on the turn when they don't hit the flush is a little more complicated except for the case of a set. If he can have the nut flush draw when you have KK, then you have to consider if an A on the turn then really helped. Also of prime importance is how aggressive he is. That is, if you check will he bet so that you can checkraise? Also similarly, if you bet and he calls and the flush misses on the river, will he ever bluff or would he raise if he made a runner runner 2 pair or board set.

However, again as a general rule, if you bet the pot on the flop, check/fold the turn if the flush hits, and push the turn if it misses, then you will always be +EV for playing that way whether he calls or not on the turn to a push. Exactly how much your EV is depends if he catches a pair or some kind of straight draw on the turn as well.

Also note that how much of a calling station he is factors in as to whether you should in fact push the turn or could often get a bigger return by betting again and not losing him where he would call on the river as well if he made an overpair to the flop cards.

This is a quick analysis, and I am sure if you posted it on 2+2 you would get a better response, though the opponent's aggressiveness and exact stack sizes would be required to give the best answer.

BluffTHIS!

steve said...

More footy, well more on decision-making. There is a positive lesson to be learnt for the FA today. Admittedly facilitated (or not, depending on your viewpoint) by the injuries to Rooney and Owen, we have seen an incredible departure from the normally pragmatic, risk-averse Erisksson, by, I'm pleased to say selecting Walcott and Lennon.

Why? because he is off in the summer. We've all been pretty disapointed with Erikson, but is the FA culpable by makignthe job too good to lose. It seems apparent that we oferred Erikson a contract he didn't want to lose, and so his decisions were geared as such, I'm sure he wouldn't have made similar squad selections four years ago. There must surely be the danger that in offering such lucrative contracts we risk stifling the decision-making process of the managers. In club management few manager's fate stand or fall by one or two games (or decisions), but international management does. If you have a Mourinho-moment then you might not get the chance to show you're decisions are good in the long run.
'Don't be controversial' would appear to be the management's mantra.

His decision-making (professional at least) must have always been weighted towards keeping his job (as is the case with most managers on good contracts), which is measured more by lack of failure than success. Now you have to believe that he is skewed more towards winning the World Cup, then avoiding been knocked out in the group phases, than he has been in previous tournaments.

Perhaps it would be better if international managers were steered towards winning contracts, rather than not losing them. Then they may well choose the strategy that maximises success - like dropping Beckham in the last euros.

Although, that all said, the FA's position might be similar - they too may prefer the lower risk; lower reward option.

Although I guess, if they pay out the contracts in full on a sacking, then the argument falters somewhat. Then I suppose you could argue the driver behind risk-averse deicion-making is the media: if it all goes pear-shaped now with walcott & lennon then its off to the Med.

SimonG. said...

Dave,
One skill which is entirely transferable into the business world is reading people. I have come out of numerous business meetings with people that thought everything went swimmingly, whereas I on the the other hand knew they were telling a pack of fucking lies.

When I called someone's bluff last time for just taking the piss a step too far, I asked them to demo what they just said. Of course, they couldn't. When asked back at HQ what I was playing at, I instinctively replied "just taking him off his hand." That explanation took another 45 minutes....

Anonymous said...

Hi Bluff,

Thanks very much for your comments. I do occasionally look on 2+2 but I think the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty low, maybe I should have more patience!

Certainly from a purely mathematical and profit making point of view your analysis makes perfect sense, but what I forgot to mention was the implied tilt odds if the foe hits.

I ought to have pointed out that if the hero's trip kings get cracked once again by J3 ("but they were sooted!") the PC would be sent flying out the window at a cost of roughly 50 average pots. Even if all the information stored on said machine were totally worthless, this play is quite clearly -EV!

Thanks again and good luck!

Matt.

Anonymous said...

hi dave

long time between posts ! hope the next gap is not as long :)
i am looking for some "good" reading material to help me out with my PLO game, any suggestions guys ?
there have been suggestions in previous posts but i can't locate them in your archives.
oh yes, thanks to anonymous, i think, who pointed me in the direction of "remmy" , excellent stuff, mostly, for a complete novice at PLO.
anyway, thanks in advance :)

ddmcm

Anonymous said...

tomtiritomtataa dave

i'm mostly a lurker of your blog, but since i'm drunk enough i feel the need to thank you from your return to your very own blog... there really isn't all that much to read in the internet regarding pookah these days but there are still some nice folks out there (just bloody hard to find)

matu

Big Dave D said...

Matt,

Sorry for the long delay, but Im a working joe :) What I would add to Bluff's advice is that if a foe calls when he is not getting the right odds, either now or implied, to some extent you have to be happy regardless of results. Dan Harrington talks about this bet sizing concept a fair deal in his first book. Also, practically, a bet of 3/4-ish of the pot can be a useful general purpose bet, especially short handed where you will be betting every kind of flop when you have taken the lead.

gl

dd

Big Dave D said...

Chaos, good points. Next up, politics :)

Simon, I did say *live* skills were more useful. And I would say that being able to handle the meta game of live play is n times more valuable than people reading.

ddmcm, read the archives. all of them :)

matu, thanks!

cheers

Dave

Anonymous said...

hi dave

and chaos, BluffThis!, aksu, regular readers, anon's & lurkers.
I am going to start playing 25/50c limit PLO PLO8 and need some advice.

what should my starting bank be ?
what sort of hourly win rate should i try to reach ?
is there a likely, or acceptable, variance ?

btw i am going to stick rigidly to these limits because i have been learning to play PLO, both limit and pot limit at varying levels ie 2/4c all the way up to 50c/$1 and as you can imagine my game and results are all over the place. I am not even sure that my play is getting better !!
I hope that if i stick to the one level it will be a better learning ground for me ie playing against the same level of skill/opponent all the time. is this a reasonable assumption, or am I way off the mark ?

burning question - as a learner (and therefor fish) should i only contine in the hand post flop if I have a shot at the nuts ?

regards

ddmcm

Big Dave D said...

ddmcm,

For those stakes you definately need to read this site:

http://www.winningonlinepoker.com/

I think he's pulled the plug on updating it a long while back and for stakes of say above 2-4 PL its not so useful, even dangerous, but for lower stakes its the best free stuff I've seen.

The real burning question you need to ask yourself is "Why am I playing?" If its just for fun, which is more than acceptable, just fuck around at the low stakes and play the odd tourney for a parlay. And write off your minimal losses as entertainment.

If winning is your goal, then you need to accept that it isnt *always* fun. In fact the fun bit disappeared for me a loooonnng time ago. But if $ is your goal then I would suggest the following.

1. Play either limit 08b or PLO8b at the micro stakes.
2. Once you get to the $1-2 PL or $3-6 limit stakes think of moving to NLHE or becoming a hilo limit specialist. Or both.

Reasons for 1 - these are the softest games to play at low stakes with the highest earn but the lowest variance.
Reasons for 2 - whilst the boom is booming there is no game where you can extract money so directly from bad players at reasonable stakes than NLHE. Also limit o8b games at all levels are full of fish, and if you can build yourself a short handed game - which frankly I never could - then you can take it right to the top with good game selection.

Reason for no PLO - at lower stakes, PLO8b will be better earn with lower risk. At higher stakes its just debateable whether thegame is worth playing versus the more profitable alternatives, given you have a choice.

gl

Dave

Anonymous said...

http://www.playwinningpoker.com/

badger's old site also has some nice limit o8 advice...

matu

Anonymous said...

bid dave D

looking for some more advice :) two questions really.

am I being foolish playing without rakeback ?
if so, is it as simple as closing my account on Party and opening another through rakeback.com ?
is there a "best" rakeback site to use ?

which leads nicely to my second question.
I noticed from previous blog entries that you have multiple accounts at the one site, party, stars or whatever.
is this common practice and how do you do it ?
any time I have tried this I have been told either, I cannot open an account because of duplicate user details or my credit card is already registered ?
just how devious are you guys being ??

cheers

ddmcm

ps thanks for previous advice, you too matu :))

Big Dave D said...

Gerg,

I think D&D society is better. The other day, to a moderately dumb but innocuous question, I even saw Bluff do a Winter-like picture only question!!!

cheers

Dave

DMW said...

Hmm. I like the post but I think there are plenty of qualities found in winning poker players that help people succeed in other areas.

As evidence I submit Greg Raymer: His qualities as a poker player probably make him a good lawyer as well. Granted, we would have to do research to prove this but I don't see a reason to doubt it.

- Joe T

Big Dave D said...

Hi Joe,

Well there's life in the old blog yet!

I agree in a small way, and much more so for good live players. But the combination of those %s is very tiny. And the examples in that 2+2 thread were just insane. BTW, I'm not sure Greg is such a great example. He's a patent lawyer, which doesn't, I believe, constitute all those values which pokering might benefit.

Enjoy the blog, there's some good stuff in there, especially in the comments! I also write in a similar, but milder vein for Card Player Europe.

gl

dd