Title says it all really. How important would you say a HUD is to win at these stakes online? How big an advantage is a HUD to players using it providing they know how to interpret the stats over a decent sample size over players who don't use one? Would it be be difficult to beat micro/small stakes without?

I've never used one and have always beaten micro stakes without issue for the last ten years or so.

I think the micros are beatable without a HUD. Nevertheless, using a HUD in my opinion brings a lot of advantages with it. Beside of the tracking of your opponents play and giving you the opportunity to exploit his leaks on a mathematical approach and not going by your feeling, it tracks also your play and allows you to analyze your own game and find leaks. If you are serious about poker a HUD is one of the best investments that you can make. If you play just few thousands of hands per month then you definitely don't need a HUD.

This is yet another example of what I'm talking about. Not saying the person I'm quoting is lying, but every other person on 2p2 claims to have just crushed the micros and yet I've never, ever met one single person - in person - who did anything other than laugh, talk about how much money they lost online, and that they would never deposit again.

Just saying.

If you can profit playing cash games on WPN, please let me know how. Tons, and tons of people would like to know.

Basically, with or without a HUD, I have yet to find one single thing you could do for money that is less lucrative and profitable than online poker is here in 2017. I play because I just genuinely love playing the game. Actually making any amount of money worth mentioning doesn't seem realistic at all.

As for the HUD itself: I'm by no means an expert but it does seem to be one of those things where once you use it online, it's hard to go back to not using it. There's just tons of information being gathered and available to you on the fly and in today's game, a lot of your opponents are using one, as well.

Maybe that is because of the people you surround yourself with. Winning at poker isn't easy but it's not rocket science. Anyone with a bit of intelligence can ask the right questions, plug the right leaks and eventually become a winning player if he puts the work in.

By the way not everyone on 2+2 who says they crush are telling the truth obviously. When you are surrounded by people who are good at something people feel inclined to go along with it and it takes courage to say "hey I suck at this can you help me out here". The opposite is also true, when the people near you are not making much money or very smart or attractive or bad at poker, it almost becomes a sin to excel in any of these things. The smartest people on the planet get ridiculed by dumb people that are just looking for things that they can laugh at to make them feel at a more equal level while they scream and shout when that person calls them dumb. Nonetheless there are a significant amount of people who can comfortably crush the micros with or without HUD.

1) I have honestly found winning at poker (online, I'm going to start playing live because some of these drunken house games I see are just free money) in the micros to be the most difficult thing I've embarked on. It just feels like 2 steps forward and 4 steps back, over and over. Now, I need to remain dedicated and put in a lot of volume over the next year or so, without breaks. There's no question I have a ton to learn and experience. That said, I typically do get much better at just about everything I try than I have at poker thus far. I mean, compared to people I know offline, they think I'm God and online is just crazy hard.

2) Of course you're right in that misery loves company and that people lie lol. I do take what I hear from folks with a large grain or two of salt. Always in life. That said, I do know that more than a few people have literally pulled their hair out over online poker since Black Friday. Guys who were winning back then just never got back to winning.

3) You're obviously bright because yes - The intelligent are always labeled as stupid and/or crazy by the masses. Yet the masses can't take their eyes off of them. Sticking to one's core and not allowing oneself to be swayed is extremely difficult in life. The better you are inside, it seems the more people try to pull you away from that.

Winning w/o hud micros is definitely possible.
My usual cash limits have been NL50-NL100 what I have been playing over the years, but times when I play micros, I actually prefer to play w/o hud, players are so unstable at micros, that hud isn't necessary, moreover you can and if you are beginner, prob going to overuse it a lot.

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD Poker HUD & Database

NL Holdem $-20(BB)
SB ($960)
HERO ($2040)

Dealt to Hero Q Q

SB Calls $10 (Rem. Stack: 940), HERO Raises To $80 (Rem. Stack: 1940), SB $940 (allin) (Rem. Stack: 0), HERO Calls $860 (Rem. Stack: 1080)

Flop ($1920) J 5 4

Turn ($1920) J 5 4 3

River ($1920) J 5 4 3 5

SB shows 5 K

SB wins $1920

No matter what variant of poker I play, this is all that goes on all day and night. Honestly, I swear to you I've never once had a heater, never once gotten extremely lucky, or ever once been able to consistently profit because once I start doing so, there will be 6 or 7 of these in a row. Three years of playing online, on and off. Mostly off as a result of simply needing to keep my sanity.

I don't understand what's different about me and the guy who doesn't take beats like this constantly. Whatever it is, it certainly has nothing to do with poker ability.

The "problem" with poker is that there isn't a course you can take and at the end you are a good player like any subjects at schools. There are obviously training sites but the way they teach isn't for everyone and it's not like these people have a ton of experience in teaching; they are poker players. Doesn't mean their material is bad but tons of people are just not going to properly learn poker from it.

To be honest for me it wasn't putting in the volume that made me beat $10NL years ago. It was just asking myself the right questions. I found that some of these punks were 3betting me the whole time and I "happened" to be out of position the whole time and I was losing money to them fast. What I did was think about how I was going to beat these punk ass mother****ers and develop a strategy. I found that I was raising a bit too wide and not tight enough in early positions and these guys were taking advantage of it. The approach was to figure out my range, think about how they could **** me over and how I was going to combat it. If you take the time to sit back and ask yourself these questions then the answers come naturally.

Also this was in a time when I thought a HUD was something in a space ship.

Believe me, man: I have done soul searching, studying, tons of hand history reviews, put in volume, sat there after 4 and 5 horrible beats and just taken an hour or two off coming back with a great attitude...only to take 4 or 5 more. I swear to you, the hand above is the typical result when I get the money in. it's not a small sample size. I know people are going to say "variance" but "the problem" with poker is that I don't think very many people in today's world have interest in playing a game that requires tons of time, energy, commitment, money, studying, etc - all to keep basically being robbed of wins and money. To any sane, reasonable person the question of "what's the point?" would enter their mind day one. There is no other game in existence where the guy who got outplayed wins. Not one.

I'm absolutely positive that people are going to naturally assume I'm exaggerating but yes - 3 years of playing online poker on and off and I have never gotten away from experiencing several beats like that PER DAY. There's no way to profit like that and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. I can't put in more study time to ensure I win more all ins when I have 80%+ equity.

There have been times in cash games, a couple of years ago, where I would lose 7-10 all ins like that in a row. All within a few hours. I wasn't alone, either. I saw it happen to other people. Lots of other people. The thing that gets a lot of our head's turning is that you just don't ever see that kind of thing happen in live poker. I just don't understand what there is to explain such a radical difference in results and board run outs between online and live.

I can guarantee that it does happen live and it can crush your soul. It's one of the reasons I no longer play professionally. If I was good enough to beat 500NL+ online I would be playing it though.

Do you have a tracker? When I played a lot of sit and go there were times where I started a batch of 12 and they were all gone within 15 minutes, and that wasn't that rare. Still in the end that didn't turn me into a losing player because sometimes I also ran like god. Just saying that this feeling is kind of natural because tournaments do that to you. I'm wondering whether you actually run below chip EV or that it is just a feeling you get. Very few people actually feel like they have been running pretty good over their life time and tend to remember the bad stretches.

I have 2 different HUDS, use them extensively, track my results and hands extensively and trust me: I can't be any more emphatic in that the hand I posted is an all day and night thing. Cash games, MTT's, SNG's - I start playing well, start putting money together, and then boom. Beat, after beat, after beat, after beat. Hand on a stack of bibles.

I live on the East Coast of the US. It's 7am here and I don't see how I could even play more today. 7am. You can't play tilted and after 4 SNG's in a row where I got just point blank ROBBED of my money, there's no possible way I can go into another poker hand with the right mindset. I don't see how anyone could. Maybe after a bad day or two but not a bad few years like that.

I still insist: I've never ran hot once. Never. As soon as I started doing so, a chain of events unfolded that led to me inevitably losing whatever I made. I'm just reporting what's really happened in my experience with online poker and also as said before, I've never met one person face to face who had any other experience. That's just dead truth. I'm talking multiple cities around the United States and tons of time in NYC itself. Never met one winner.

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD Poker HUD & Database

NL Holdem $-40(BB)
SB ($2135)
HERO ($865)

Dealt to Hero A Q

SB Raises To $100 (Rem. Stack: 2015), HERO $825 (allin) (Rem. Stack: 0), SB Calls $745 (Rem. Stack: 1270)

Flop ($1730) 6 J J

Turn ($1730) 6 J J 9

River ($1730) 6 J J 9 7

SB shows K J

SB wins $1730


Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD Poker HUD & Database

NL Holdem $-30(BB)
SB ($895)
HERO ($2105)

Dealt to Hero A K

SB $880 (allin) (Rem. Stack: 0), HERO Calls $865 (Rem. Stack: 1210)

Flop ($1790) A 9 3

Turn ($1790) A 9 3 T

River ($1790) A 9 3 T 3

SB shows T 3

SB wins $1790


Both of those showed up within the same 3 hands on the next sit and go. Three years of absolutely NOTHING but this.

I know some will say "nothing good comes from you posting beats" but I think players considering depositing on these sites should know what they're getting into. Three years of the above and NEVER one good run? I think it's pretty obvious what's going on.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28.../index831.html

There's no other explanation. I'm not a sucker. The odds on what have happened to me in the HUSNG's just this past week are so astronomical they're simply not possible after three previous years of the same thing.

The thing is that none of the sites wound up getting any money from me. I just took the poker money, put it on roulette, and won hundreds of dollars. Now I'll just withdraw the money and use it for live poker where I know I won't be ripped off.

Something's wrong when roulette has become more profitable than online poker.

edit: There are things I haven't even brought up. The just blatant, out in the open collusion that goes on, players telling me "88 HHEHEHEHEHE" when I get dealt 88, and other players saying "watch this" before they go all in with 72o against my KK and the flop comes down 722. You can believe me or not believe me but I know what I've witnessed/experienced. If you were in my shoes, obviously you would only have come to one conclusion. There only is one possible conclusion.

This thread has turned from a simple question to a rant/collusion/tin foil hat thread....

Being an experienced (3+ years) player, you know HU can be high variance...so are you saying that you are running bad or the poker sites are pulling the doom switch on you at the micro stakes?

There are a TON of lifetime graphs where the equity/all in EV line isn't anywhere close to the green line...just the way it is, is this something to worry about? Nope

FWIW, it seems like you're mental game is a major leak...if tilting losing after 4 bad beats in HU matches makes it so you can't play for the rest of the day, that's not a good sign, this happens all the time and is pretty standard. Definitely not post-worthy.

What about everything else discussed? Players telling me what I have when I'm dealt cards, guys openly colluding at tables, losing 8 and 9 all ins in a row with 80%+ equity? What about all of that? Never addressed.

The fact is, as I've explained before, poker is back in the shadows and dark ages like it's 1982 again because the world has changed since the mid 2000's. It's faster, there's tons of competition for attention, people demand results and satisfaction. Now. Not after a large sample size. Nobody's going to put themselves through that. If the venue doesn't deliver, and deliver quickly, they move on. I'm telling you: A game where the weaker player regularly wins doesn't have any place in this world anymore. There was a very, very brief hiccup where people paid attention to the world of poker and then it ended. We're a long, long way from 2005, guys. Most people today would definitely agree that any game where losing 4 and 5 games in a row when you actually won is "standard", is broken. It's just not very entertaining.

I remember a quote from fat, luckbox Chris Moneymaker once where he said that poker has more competition to it than anything else because of the money involved. I guess he forgets that poker isn't the only place money is exchanged in the world. Further, the competition he speaks of is pure fiction. There's nothing competitive about a game that ultimately comes down to random chance. Nothing. If you want to play something competitive, you play chess or a physical sport. You pursue musical interests or art. These are competitive venues. You definitely don't join a place where literally anyone can win by just pressing a button and getting lucky. That's not competitive at all LOL.

The other bunch of pure crap is this theory about my "mental game". Any single human being on earth would do the very definition of tilt if they flat out beat someone 4, 5, 6 times in a row and had it taken away from them. Especially with money on the line. People tend to get a little upset when they're robbed and stolen from. To pretend that these drooling 20 something's who play poker online have the patience, discipline, and self control to endure weeks of bad runs without tilting at all is just laughable beyond belief. Half of them can't even find their way to their dorm room after class. So, let's be real here. There aren't human beings who don't "tilt" when they're being stolen from. Everyone does. Once again, pretending that there are people who doesn't only makes the fact that this is a ripoff more obvious. Any time someone instantly denies and rejects an idea that has TONS of smoke around it, it means there's absolutely, definitely, 100% a fire there. That's how people respond when they're trying to cover something up.

So they decide to cheat at the lower stakes? Most of these theories on cheating and another POTRIPPER account is discussed by player at smaller stakes...? The same answer is always given...why scam at the lowest stakes when you could do it at mid/high stakes? ...to not get caught? Seems like counterfeiting 1s and 5s....doesn't really happen.

Telling you your hole cards...wow, the gods smiled upon this lucky hacker/inside poker rep...and he's making thousands a week. Let's ruin it by openly stating your hole cards...my guess is he had a read on you and got lucky to guess it right AND write it to you, it does seem suspicious of course, but I've known people had AK or AA, nut straight, flush etc and said it out loud but don't care enough to type ot...maybe he was having fun

Anyways, play live if you think it's rigged, I wouldn't reinvest if I thought something shady was happening.

Wanted to fix that for ya.

As for stakes: They cheat at every stake. They'll just as happily steal $4 from you 100x as $400 once. Why wouldn't they? Again, like poker itself - You're trying to make this out to be far, far more complicated than it is.

Somebody here went from slightly weird to complete ape****.

More complicated? You mean like a simple question about HUDS that turned into this lol. Let's be honest, this was never a response about HUDS, this was just a Dedicatedtopoker conspiracy/cheating/colluding theory response.

*edited since I thought dedicated to poker was OP, sorry iraiseucall

WTF has happened to this thread, pure nonsensical sh*te for the most part.

Thanks for the on topic responses. I've gone ahead and invested in PT4.

Right, you don't even know who you're talking to LOL. Go back to bed, buddy.

LOL - wait until you get absolutely CRUSHED whether you use a HUD or not and we'll see how nonsensical you think this all is. There's a reason very, very few Americans play online poker anymore. I guess you'll find out for yourself after the first 2 or 3 hundred beats.

Kelvis tossing out the good advice early ITT but to no avail it seems.
Dedicated, why is it rigged against you specifically? just wondering. How do 'they' decide who to rig against and who to rig for?

Edit to add: bad beats happen believe it or not and you actually want your opponents shoveling money in the pot as a dog. You got unlucky, it happens, its poker. Dont let it tilt you like it seems to be, the mental game comments were also good advice.

also:

GL with PT4 OP!