How do you get profitable at poker?

[whycantistayawayfromdogs]

I cant believe people are throwing around 20 hours this and 20 hours that and no one has asked whether the guy has rakeback? Im only playing 0.05/0.1 atm and id guess (no offense intended or brag) that i have more knowledge of the game, move down... IF you cant handle playing for 'pittence' then dont play because you arent going to beat a level where a fair few people are better than you. I dont agree that 0.25/0.5 is 'easily beatable' playing complete TAG. I also dont agree with the premise that 'fancy stuff doesnt work at lower limits', it has been working for me at 0.05/0.1 on betfair and that is about as fishy as it gets online.

Question to you dudeman: Where do you play and have you got rakeback?

[Nade]

Being fancy may work for an advanced player but for a novice there's just no need to get fancy at the lower levels as TAG pwns it all over especially at 25./50. been there done that for more hours then i care to remember.

[MartyMcG_1967]

My advice would be the same as others on this thread, you need to play at a stake level you are comfortable at and where you think you are better than your opponents.

My regular game is a £3.60 single table tournament on William Hill, while it varies from game to game I've found I'm generally better than the level of player there. The main difference I find is that if i get a decent hand pre-flop and raise, say for example AK and i raise to 4 times the BB and hit an A or K, i will tend to get called down by hands like kj or worse by players who have no respect for raises. I'm tight aggressive so would be very wary of playing such hands when someone has raised pre-flop and would be more inclined to throw it away.

I've made a good profit from these games, and my total profit now stands at over $300, all over a long period of time so its not a massive amount or an amount that will mean i can quit my part time job or enjoy a lavish lifestyle but it means i can play for fun and make small amounts and have a go at mtt's. SharkScope - The Largest Online Poker Tournament Results Database is a good way of recording your profit/loss.

Regarding money management, I'm not sure when i should move up to the next level of stt which is £5.50 on WH, I've played it before but found myself getting very annoyed as I think on the 3/4 occasions I've played this I have bubbled every time and generally dont feel as comfortable as I'm aware of the higher prize for 1st place. My balance at the moment is just over £50, which would give me around 10 stt's should I lose them all, would this be a sensible balance from which to experiment at a higher level?

Any advice much appreciated and hang in there dude man, its all about experience and learning from it, I read Dan Harrington's first book on Texas Holdem NL tournaments and adapted my game from stuff in that book although its important not to take everything to heart as people have said some things that work at a higher level won't work at a lower level.

Finally i tend to play stt's as I find with cash games on one hand I could lose my whole bankroll if say I hit a nut flush and ran into a fh and I'd rather know in advance how much I was going to lose should i not cash in a tournament.

[whycantistayawayfromdogs]

Originally Posted by Nade

Being fancy may work for an advanced player but for a novice there's just no need to get fancy at the lower levels as TAG pwns it all over especially at 25./50. been there done that for more hours then i care to remember.

I suppose, i think it probably depends a lot on where he plays. Im pretty sure to beat .25/.50 on full tilt you will need to pull some fancy stuff now and again just to show the regulars you are capable of it...

First task to making a steady profit though imo - get rakeback

[whycantistayawayfromdogs]

Originally Posted by MartyMcG_1967

Finally i tend to play stt's as I find with cash games on one hand I could lose my whole bankroll if say I hit a nut flush and ran into a fh and I'd rather know in advance how much I was going to lose should i not cash in a tournament.

thats why you dont put your entire bankroll on a table.

Second task to become profitable, make sure you are rolled for your level, say around 20 buyins if you are comfortable i suppose.

[MartyMcG_1967]

Originally Posted by whycantistayawayfromdogs

thats why you dont put your entire bankroll on a table.

Second task to become profitable, make sure you are rolled for your level, say around 20 buyins if you are comfortable i suppose.

Yeah your right I just tend not to play them as I prefer and do better in tournament play. What are the best sites for rakeback and lower rakes? Noticed pokertrillion give back 30% when you want it, i'm comfortable and profitable on WH but the rake is terrible and its probably something i should look at.

[ubermonkey1]

i usually go for around a 20-25 buy in limit for stts

never really played much on will hill ,but in general you should not really see much improvement in play till you get up to at least $10 games .even then the standard doesn't raise that much till you get to the $40-$50 levels.

i would recommend keeping to a decent bankroll limit and not a 10x buy in ,if you do that it will likely effect your game(you already mentioned not being comfortable).that said you have made $300 profit so if you had kept that in there then you could be moving up

out of interest how long is a long period of time?it sounds to me like you have prepared well and have shown good patience
a few of the qoutes in your post seem to suggest that the prize money is affecting your game which as everyone has said is a bad thing.i would recommend trying to completely forget the amount your playing for and set yourself the same targets in every stt

as long as you have the correct bankroll to play a game then give it a go but look at it as the same as every other stt,DONT THINK OF THE MONEY.


my usual stt starting target is get to the last 3 with at least 20%of the big stack,if i accomplish that then go for the win.i never think about winning it till that point.you can never win a game with 7 people left, 6 need to go first

getting your bankroll up is tricky at the lower levels and you've done well to record a profit , its very similar to my and most of the other players beginnings in poker.
although it is a bit of a grind it is getting you experiance and making you a bit of cash as well.
keep it up and have confidence in your game ,as long as you keep playing well theres no reason why you can't make some decent money at it

[stooo V2]

Originally Posted by MartyMcG_1967

My advice would be the same as others on this thread, you need to play at a stake level you are comfortable at and where you think you are better than your opponents.

My regular game is a £3.60 single table tournament on William Hill, while it varies from game to game I've found I'm generally better than the level of player there. The main difference I find is that if i get a decent hand pre-flop and raise, say for example AK and i raise to 4 times the BB and hit an A or K, i will tend to get called down by hands like kj or worse by players who have no respect for raises. I'm tight aggressive so would be very wary of playing such hands when someone has raised pre-flop and would be more inclined to throw it away.

I've made a good profit from these games, and my total profit now stands at over $300, all over a long period of time so its not a massive amount or an amount that will mean i can quit my part time job or enjoy a lavish lifestyle but it means i can play for fun and make small amounts and have a go at mtt's. SharkScope - The Largest Online Poker Tournament Results Database is a good way of recording your profit/loss.

Regarding money management, I'm not sure when i should move up to the next level of stt which is £5.50 on WH, I've played it before but found myself getting very annoyed as I think on the 3/4 occasions I've played this I have bubbled every time and generally dont feel as comfortable as I'm aware of the higher prize for 1st place. My balance at the moment is just over £50, which would give me around 10 stt's should I lose them all, would this be a sensible balance from which to experiment at a higher level?

Any advice much appreciated and hang in there dude man, its all about experience and learning from it, I read Dan Harrington's first book on Texas Holdem NL tournaments and adapted my game from stuff in that book although its important not to take everything to heart as people have said some things that work at a higher level won't work at a lower level.

Finally i tend to play stt's as I find with cash games on one hand I could lose my whole bankroll if say I hit a nut flush and ran into a fh and I'd rather know in advance how much I was going to lose should i not cash in a tournament.

Welcome to my world!!!!

except i play on betfair... $5 level and i seem to win this consistently. Build my bankroll from a starting point of about $20 upto about $120.... this will usually take me 5/6 hours of play thru a day but then i'm stuck in a situation where i think shall i move up?

I do it and end up bubbling a lot. I'll be honest and say that I'm not a TAG I'm most prob loose agressive tryin to steal lots of little pots so that when I take a gamble or actually do get a big hand i can afford to lose it if you get me.

End up getting frustrated and blowing the large majority of it at a higher level and then all the hard work i have put in is undone.

[MartyMcG_1967]

Originally Posted by ubermonkey1

i usually go for around a 20-25 buy in limit for stts

never really played much on will hill ,but in general you should not really see much improvement in play till you get up to at least $10 games .even then the standard doesn't raise that much till you get to the $40-$50 levels.

i would recommend keeping to a decent bankroll limit and not a 10x buy in ,if you do that it will likely effect your game(you already mentioned not being comfortable).that said you have made $300 profit so if you had kept that in there then you could be moving up

out of interest how long is a long period of time?it sounds to me like you have prepared well and have shown good patience
a few of the qoutes in your post seem to suggest that the prize money is affecting your game which as everyone has said is a bad thing.i would recommend trying to completely forget the amount your playing for and set yourself the same targets in every stt

as long as you have the correct bankroll to play a game then give it a go but look at it as the same as every other stt,DONT THINK OF THE MONEY.


my usual stt starting target is get to the last 3 with at least 20%of the big stack,if i accomplish that then go for the win.i never think about winning it till that point.you can never win a game with 7 people left, 6 need to go first

getting your bankroll up is tricky at the lower levels and you've done well to record a profit , its very similar to my and most of the other players beginnings in poker.
although it is a bit of a grind it is getting you experiance and making you a bit of cash as well.
keep it up and have confidence in your game ,as long as you keep playing well theres no reason why you can't make some decent money at it

As a student money can be tight so thats why I have withdrawn in the past rather than tried to use profits to gain more profit but my bankroll just now wouldn't affect me if I lost it. My profit is $348 after 831 stt's so thats over about 2 years probably, life in the slow lane

I know what your saying regarding the prize money but it is human nature after all but yeah my decision making is probably hindered when playing at higher stakes but thats something I can work on with experience.

I agree with you regarding strategy, as long as I make the top three thats a success but then you get greedy and I'm normally confident of winning if i make the top three and my stack isn't tiny.

Just when i thought i had mastered the WH 3.60 stt's they have amended the format, you now start with 1500 chips as opposed to 1000 ( think most sites have 1500 as your starting stack), might benefit looser players so I might have to modify my game a bit.

[GotaFancy?]

Deeper stacks would benefit good loose players. (higher implied odds).
TAGS may benefit against poorer (loose) players because it gives them more time to sit and wait for a big hand.....

[MartyMcG_1967]

Originally Posted by stooonami

Welcome to my world!!!!

except i play on betfair... $5 level and i seem to win this consistently. Build my bankroll from a starting point of about $20 upto about $120.... this will usually take me 5/6 hours of play thru a day but then i'm stuck in a situation where i think shall i move up?

I do it and end up bubbling a lot. I'll be honest and say that I'm not a TAG I'm most prob loose agressive tryin to steal lots of little pots so that when I take a gamble or actually do get a big hand i can afford to lose it if you get me.

End up getting frustrated and blowing the large majority of it at a higher level and then all the hard work i have put in is undone.

If your making $100 over a period of 5/6 hours then I'm not sure you want to be looking at moving up a level just yet, maybe you could continue with the $120 and try and increase that at $5 games even if it is a drag so you are more comfortable if you up your stakes.

If you can make that in such a short space of time then your obviously a good player, recently I've restricted myself to one or two games a day as I found when I'd play when bored or hungover and my decision making was poorer and I'd basically call with crappy hands out of boredom. Also if i suffer a bad beat it can be easy to go on tilt and lose a lot in a short space of time, so I find giving myself time to get over the anger helps thwart tilt!

If your blowing a lot of it out of frustration maybe you should take a breather, play a different format or simply don't play for a few hours.

[MartyMcG_1967]

Played two tournies tonight and got two horrendous bad beats

Tourney 1- raise 4 times the bb with aj, get two callers, one being the chip leader who has got horrendously lucky is a loose but very poor player, flop comes 7 5 10, chip leader beats minimum of 50 into a pot of 700 or so, i call and the turn comes ace, he once again min bets i push all in for about 1000 more, he calls and shows 7 8 with an 8 hitting on the river.

Tourney 2- got very little hand wise at a very loose table in which it was difficult to find out what players had as big pots often went to the river with one player folding despite having invested plenty in the pot already, often folding to tiny bets on the river, was very infuriating. Still I won one decent size pot with trip 3's which kept my head above water. As the blinds shot up i was forced to push in my bb with j 10, got called by j 3 and yep you guessed it 3 came on the river, out in 5th would have had about 2500 had i won it and would have been confident of getting at least 3rd.

Really makes you wonder, the amount of times ive seen the lowest stack on the end of a horrendous bad beat on WH is staggering.

[whycantistayawayfromdogs]

Originally Posted by MartyMcG_1967

life in the slow lane

Definately the best place to be

[whycantistayawayfromdogs]

betfair SNGs are weak, infact betfair itself is weak. If you can deal with the software then definately play on betfair

[whycantistayawayfromdogs]

Originally Posted by MartyMcG_1967

Played two tournies tonight and got two horrendous bad beats

Tourney 1- raise 4 times the bb with aj, get two callers, one being the chip leader who has got horrendously lucky is a loose but very poor player, flop comes 7 5 10, chip leader beats minimum of 50 into a pot of 700 or so, i call and the turn comes ace, he once again min bets i push all in for about 1000 more, he calls and shows 7 8 with an 8 hitting on the river.

Tourney 2- got very little hand wise at a very loose table in which it was difficult to find out what players had as big pots often went to the river with one player folding despite having invested plenty in the pot already, often folding to tiny bets on the river, was very infuriating. Still I won one decent size pot with trip 3's which kept my head above water. As the blinds shot up i was forced to push in my bb with j 10, got called by j 3 and yep you guessed it 3 came on the river, out in 5th would have had about 2500 had i won it and would have been confident of getting at least 3rd.

Really makes you wonder, the amount of times ive seen the lowest stack on the end of a horrendous bad beat on WH is staggering.

unlucky but still you/we can all obviously exploit these idiots...

[spannerjago]

Some very good comments on here. I play at the .25/.50 level with a very TAG style and don't have too many losing sessions. I won't get rich but I do make a consistent profit.

I always enter a pot with a raise. I'll never limp with small pairs but I do only min raise them which is usually enough to scare off the SB/BB and avoid them hitting miracle trips with their 53os. I play the big pairs hard but I am happy to fold in the face of strength or a dodgy looking board. In a way it's scared poker but it avoids big losing sessions and really relies on a patient game.

I like to play position as Gaf advocates and will often play suited connectors from there as if they were a big pair. It's very easy to fold them if you don't hit hard. Don't get attached to middle pair!

I also have a rakeback deal for 45% at Purple Lounge and I was amazed at how much you get back. It turns a break even session into a winning one. Definitely worth looking into. If you need a referall.........

[anilyadav1383]

The 1st commandment of poker, thou shall always make rational decisions. This rule holds true for all of your poker decisions, from game selection, to playing within your bankroll, to check raising your friend on the river. Successful poker player's decisions are always rational.

The 2nd commandment of poker, thou shall always think positively. In order to become a winner you must first believe that you are a winner. Successful poker players always think positively.

The 3rd commandment of poker, thou shall only play good starting hands. No matter what form of poker you are playing you must adhere to the rule of playing only quality starting hands.

The 4th commandment of poker, thou shall be selectively aggressive. Being selectively aggressive means betting and raising when you have an edge in the hand, or when it may influence the outcome of the hand. Successful poker players are always aggressive with their strong hands.

The 5th commandment of poker, thou shall know and play the percentages. A large part of playing solid poker is math, from being able to calculate your pot odds to figuring out how many cards will help you in a particular hand. Successful poker players always know and play the percentages.

The 6th commandment of poker, thou shall mix up your play. If you want to make maximum profit in a poker game you need to make people play against you when you have a strong hand as well as a marginal one. If you only bet when you have a strong hand or check all of your drawing hands your opponents will eventually pick up on this and you will become a very readable opponent. Successful poker players always try to mix up their play.

The 7th commandment of poker, thou shall always work on improving thy game. Whether by reading or re-reading a book or article, or practicing with software on your computer, you must constantly be trying to become a more complete poker player. Successful poker players are always trying to improve.

The 8th commandment of poker, thou shall learn from thy mistakes. Successful poker players always learn from their mistakes.

The 9th commandment of poker, thou shall always pay attention. To be a winning poker player you must be observant of your opponents, regardless of if you are involved in the hand or not. Successful poker players always pay attention.

The 10th commandment of poker, thou shall be a well-rounded poker player. To be a great poker player you must give yourself as many prospects as you can to win. Limiting yourself to only 1 form of poker such as limit Texas Hold Em, will severely reduce the options you have to find a good game. Successful poker players are well-rounded players.

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Anil Yadav

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