How do you get profitable at poker?

[dudeman99]

I hate to ask this but it's driving me nuts. The thought of making some cash from poker and not seeing it get whittled away in blinds and bad beats seems like a pretty good proposition for me! The problem is that I keep losing cash when I play NL. How do you manage to bridge the gap from losing cash to winning cash? Something is obviously wrong in the way that I play so I want to build my game from the ground up, starting from the very basics.

From my limited skillset I have discovered some flaws in my play that cost me. The major one is I tend to be too passive, not calling or reraising so I tend to get bluffed out a lot and get my cash whittled away when maniacs and TAG make random large raises.

Some books are good, some are bad. I especially hate it when they say to play certain hands from a position, and then they lead out with an example where they raise with junk.

Anyone who started from not knowing a thing about poker to where they can win cash fairly consistently knows the frustration I'm talking about when starting out.

[Nade]

You need to study the game a lot and play a lot. Then you need to combine the two - study your game and see where you're leaking money.

General rules:
- Play at levels you're comfortable with
- Read about strategy (strategy forum here is a good place to start)
- Play TAG - Then when you get a hand and hit it bet the life out of it, people will call you down with crap.
- Don't be fancy, fancy play is for TV and high stakes games, it just doesn't work at low levels.
- Be patient.
- Be willing to improve.

[philossify]

Hi Dudeman, heres my view.....

to a certain extent it depends how much money you hope to win and how many hours a day you are prepared to put in together with the (obvious) addendum that your skill level is better than the skill level of the opposition (plus a couple of percent for the house rake).

If you are only aiming at a few thousand pounds per year then I'd argue that you should stay away from any NL cash tables over say $0.50/$1 (or even possibly any NL cash tables) as IMHO the NL cash game is very very competitive and IMHO the fish ratio is not as good as it once was (it's been overfished). If you are insistent that its NL cash then besides the things that Nade mentions then good money management is key and probably good record keeping on your opponents and tracking software will help. The alternative for making "pin money" (less than £5000 per year) is to play decent freerolls and value games and the PL daily list will point you at these.

If you want (need?) to make a working wage at poker then you have to speculate (that's another word for risk) more, either via multitabling on relatively cheap NL cash games where an average skill level might suffice or (if you think you are hard enough ) playing in higher value touneys and higher value cash games. But be warned, the world of poker is littered with the bodies of those who thought they had a good game and got shafted. Again money management is the key ... you have an amount to play with (hopefully some amount you can afford to lose, otherwise contact Gamblers Anonymous ), apportion it so you have enough samples to make a valid judgement of your real play capability (its amazing how many of us think we could be a contender), play it through ... if you lose it all then you are playing above your skill level and should move down to an easier game.

Remember even people like Doyle Brunson have been massive losers at times ... and that many "professional" poker players have success for a time and then end up miserable, divorced, sad and broke. So keep it real and build your bankroll slowly - the game is so much easier if all you lose is little pieces of the money you've won.

[GotaFancy?]

My view is that making money at poker is easy, anyone can do it and it comes down to just 2 factors (and neither of them are poker ability)
1) Play at a level where you are playing against worse/less disciplined opponents than yourself - if you're losing money, you're almost certainly playing at too high a level.
2) Be disciplined - develop a good Tight Aggressive game and stick to it. It's not the most exciting form of poker - but it works - as you get better and evolve as a player you can bring in other aspects to your game.

Test yourself at higher levels from time to time with your winnings, if it doesn't work, grind out some more profit at the lower level before taking a shot at a higher level again....

[voiceofjoe]

Originally Posted by GotaFancy?

My view is that making money at poker is easy, anyone can do it and it comes down to just 2 factors (and neither of them are poker ability)
1) Play at a level where you are playing against worse/less disciplined opponents than yourself - if you're losing money, you're almost certainly playing at too high a level.
2) Be disciplined - develop a good Tight Aggressive game and stick to it. It's not the most exciting form of poker - but it works - as you get better and evolve as a player you can bring in other aspects to your game.

Test yourself at higher levels from time to time with your winnings, if it doesn't work, grind out some more profit at the lower level before taking a shot at a higher level again....

GAF - Did you finish the HOH Cash game books - and if so have you done a review anywhere ?

[GotaFancy?]

I haven't had the time to read any more since I last posted (Part I!!!)

[wurzel133]

1) Play at a level where you are playing against worse/less disciplined opponents than yourself - if you're losing money, you're almost certainly playing at too high a level.


or to low a level where the real fish are

[GotaFancy?]

Originally Posted by wurzel133

or to low a level where the real fish are

Yes - this is where your opponents make the biggest errors and your TAG should be most profitable

[dudeman99]

OK, thanks for the responses. Yes, it is shameful, I can't beat 0.25/0.50 NLHE.

To help you fine folks to get a better idea of how best to help me out, all I am after is maybe an expectation of $100 - $200 per week in exchange for 20 odd hours of game time. Is that realistic and achievable? And, how true are the comments about the lower limits being overfished?

I understand playing TAG, but doesn't that mean in many cases your bank will be eaten away by blinds? It can be a fairly long stretch between playable hands when the best strategy is to play only 20% of them.

As I said before, I reckon my biggest problem is when the flop doesn't hit, and someone bets out. I have no idea whether to call or raise and in most cases I simply fold, even though I may hit bottom or middle pair on a high board.

Sorry for the donk questions BTW!

[GotaFancy?]

I dont think setting targets will help you - especially if you're just starting out - I think you should always look to maximise what you're winning, but chasing will just cost you money....

Before you start looking for large profits - you need a good solid game that you can break even with - then you can go from there.....

Remember (and I'm making these figures up, but dont imagine they're that far from the truth) - 70% of internet players lose. 20% are around break even, of the 10% that make a wothwhile profit, probably only half hit the kind of numbers you're talking about.

So you need to be amongst the best 5% or so of online players to make that kind of money - you wont just get there - it will take a lot of time, experience, study, commitment, natural flair etc

However, for the reservations offered - is it achievable? Most definitely and you wont need to play that high stakes to achieve it

Playing 20% of hands (at full ring) I would consider pretty loose (especially at the lower levels) - tight could even be lower than 10%, though I'm probably looking more at 12-13%....

A lot of the time, when you raise pre flop, you will be putting in a continuation bet post flop, whether you hit or not......

If you're playing tight, then when you do play you have AA, KK, QQ or AK - how do you hit bottom or middle pair?

You play tight, you give your blinds away - they're pretty insignificant in cash because of the large inplied odds that you get from being deep stacked (100xBB or so) - if someone wants to steal your blinds - let them - you're out of position post flop - dont worry too much about defending blinds in Cash, if you want to defend something, you're better off defending your button (though would suggest you dont need to do that at the lower levels and until you're more experienced). It shouldn't be too unusual to fold 30 or 40 hands on the trot if you're playing proper TAG....

I seriously suspect you're not playing quite as tight as you think you are.... When you're more experienced and have proven yourself playing solid TAG, you can get more active by playing multiple tables simultaneously - though I would strongly suggest you're not ready for that yet (your improvement/development will slow when you're playing multi tables, because you will be less aware of what is going on...

I haven't finished reading it yet, so cannot recommend it from personal reading, however suspect you would benefit greatly from reading the Harrington on Cash books

[glceud]

Originally Posted by dudeman99

OK, thanks for the responses. Yes, it is shameful, I can't beat 0.25/0.50 NLHE.

To help you fine folks to get a better idea of how best to help me out, all I am after is maybe an expectation of $100 - $200 per week in exchange for 20 odd hours of game time. Is that realistic and achievable?

Short answer is no. $200 a week, ever week in 20 odd hours is impossible at NL $0.25/$0.50

If you want to call it 1000 hrs a year for $10,000 then thats a start. Theres no weekly wage playing poker.

Fixed limit you would need to be single tabling $4/$8 or 4 tabling $1/$2 and you might just about make it,thats if your a half decent player or about twice as good as me.

[Nade]

I've played tonnes of 25/50 full ring and it is easily beatable with a lot of patience. To make $200 in 20hrs at that level i think isn't achievable consistently. Say you play 4hrs a day for 5days a week you won't be playing enough to make back the inevitable times when you lose a buy-in or more to make $200 a week simply. Everyone at every single level loses buy-ins, it's just unavoidable in the main so you've got to put in man hours to over-ride this and make a bigger consistent profit.

For what it's worth i'd say to make $200 playing at 50NL single tabling you should be looking to play over 30hrs a week.

I also agree with 2 of Gafs points - You're most likely playing looser then you think. Everyone does it. The main indication of this is you say you're playing 20% of hands i.e. 1/5 on a full ring table which is 2 hands every orbit and that is definitely too loose. It sounds totally nitty but to consistently win at that level play big hands and limp with value = money. And that mean as Gaf says sometimes folding 30/40 hands in a row. The likelyhood is the opposition at that level won't be paying too much attention and even if they are i guarantee you they think they can outplay you because they see you (the rock) as a fish who is scared. Instead you wait for these fools to get fancy and bend them over the table backwards.

[GotaFancy?]

Hmmm......I think I'm going to disagree with both of you - 6 tabling full ring is more than achievable if you are playing TAG - 20 hours will therefore be 120 table hours - $240 profit is $2 profit per table hour - that's 4 x BB per table per hour - say you're playing 50 hands an hour - that is a profit needed of 8xBB/100 - no chance in Limit, but achievable for some players on NL (and I'm not saying it's easy, just that its achievable)

[Nade]

I was obv working on notion of 1table nevermind 6 If you add loads of tables then obv it becomes achievable to make the money within 20hrs play but i was merely working on the assumption they play 1 table at a time ...

[GotaFancy?]

For sure Nade From what I've heard so far, it would be a BIG mistake for Dudeman to play more than 1 table for quite a while - I was just trying to talk about what was achievable

[glceud]

I said $4/$8 so thats just one and a quarter big bets an hour, that is achievable. Even more so 4 tabling $1/$2.

Problem with TAG NL play is it leads to a lot of small profit sessions but occasional massive losing sessions. The profitable sessions minus the losses might lead to a $10 per hour profit overall, but if you have a heavy losing session you wont recover playing TAG within the 20 hr period.

[GotaFancy?]

Agreed - you cannot count on $200 per week - some weeks will be a loss, some weeks will be $1000 - poker has a lot of variance - it's a fact you have to live with - however averaging a $200 per week profit is achievable

[dudeman99]

I feel that there may have been a little bad communication before.

I meant to say that I cannot currently beat 0.25/0.50 consistently, but when I do, get some skill and am able to grind out a profit at these low levels then I will most def up my stakes and play at higher limit tables to get my profit expectation. I agree that averaging $10/hour from these microstakes would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, but easily doable with 1/2 or higher and multitabling.

Right now I need to accumulate as many player points as possible from my deposit for the maximum amount of bonus cash in the next 20 days. It won't do me any good if my lose rate is faster than the rate which I get the freebie

Right now I am just after a set of "rules" that I can play by which will basically allow me to have a zero win/loss expectation but will get me into the bonus cash faster. As a general guideline for being TAG, it basically means playing the top 16 hands, raising them when I have them, and C-betting after the flop? Also staying away from aggressive players and betting a bit bigger against the more cautious players?

[gazabroad]

What are the top 16 hands?
Maybe I´m playing this game all wrong!

[Nade]

Dudeman - uber TAG is top 10 hands raise pre flop... (Not sure on the next 6 )

limp with pocket pairs TT and below hoping to hit a set. (Others will disagree but there's much more value in limping imo)

Stay well out of the way of other rocks - there's no need/point getting involved in hands against players who only bet when they have a good hand too.

If there's multiple limpers then limp if you're in late position with a looser range of hands.