hey gib, ty for the kind words sir!

i think if i combine all levels i have about 98-100k hands at 6m lhe, which isn't a huge sample size and i'm still finding my legs so to speak. i think each 10k i play is better than the previous 10k because my first 30k or so i was not really sure what i was doing. i'm still figuring out blind play somewhat; my current stats are att to steal is 37 and i fold bb to steal 67 and sb to steal 83. my lifetime stats would be lower as i was more passive at the beginning and the games are getting harder and more aggro each month i think. how do i see what the winrates are in each spot? and how do i see the vpips for sb and bb? i've never been a big pt guru at all actually

i don't see myself entirely quitting lhe for nl but if nl keeps going okay and i keep progressing and feeling like i'm playing okay then i'll stick with it for a while and see how far i can go. the games are different and frankly there's really no substitute for limit holdem when i want to mash the bet and raise button over and over and go to showdown a lot, lol. live i still play only lhe at this time.

in 5 years time no, i don't see poker as my primary income any more. my family, friends, and gf would be like wtf mate?! and i've also always seen myself as going back to school for some advanced degrees and doing cool stuff with them.

tilt control is a big one; it's even more important in nl than in lhe because when i spray off a whole buyin of $50 or $100 in one hand it's a lot faster than in lhe! for a while when i took ridiculous beats in lhe i would just go outside and just run around the neighborhood for 10-15 minutes just using my frustration/anger as energy for my run! it was always good to burn off steam and i'd get back, shower and be calm to play again. it's also just a mindset and constantly reminding yourself to concentrate on the long run and not the short run. having someone to talk about poker with was always very useful and TPK and i would bounce ideas and beats and stories off each other which was a good anti-tilt. a lot of people have written much more in depth and much more elegantly than me about tilt control so i'll sum it up here. i don't have any problem with going down to penny stakes and just lagging it up for half an hour which can be fun as well! also i think 6m and maybe hu lhe are 2 of the tiltiest games out there so keep your cool! i know you can keep moving up as you have been so far, and i'm there to help you!

smash bros for n64, man tpk and i played that so much, i'd say to be honest if we played 100 matches he'd win like 57 or so and i'd win 43. it depends if we use items, what level we use, and so on. i'm getting used to smash brothers on xbox but they nerfed my character (kirby) and made him a lot weaker! really lame imo.

hey ozi, good question.

good avatars:

gib, whichever one he has bc he's a badass, but esp. the heineken cooler.
neurotiq, because it's the hottest topic going in micros atm.
drmodern, because those shorts are so hot right now.
wookie, because classic, consistent, and a great movie.
brain, because ldo.


honorable mention:

diamond lie, because that game kicks so much ass.
kitcloudkicker, because that show was awesome.


bad avatars:

tyler, bc lame sexual/foot connotations are so 2006.
xhad, bc wtf is that thing? still <3 u though bro. and wtf was that avatar you had before that? probably #1 reason for your being underrated imo.
kerowo, bc i'm not sure what that thing is but it's creepy.
aaron w, bc 8k posts and no avatar? lamezor.
b2_eboogaloo, bc micros is not for babies or whining.

hi xylo, ty for the kind words

1 - little fold equity meaning both blinds are likely to call and we have unsuited low kicker like a3o? i fold that first in until the btn. something like a7s i'd open a few spots before the button regardless of blinds.

2 - baby pps are tough, if the blinds are unlikely to fold i won't open 22 or 33 at all except on the btn, and 44-55 i'd raise in co or so. 66+ and it's game on. if blinds are really bad i think there's a case for open limping small pps otb but that's a whole other can of worms.

3 - i haven't had em both too often (not a huge beer snob yet, although i am trying) but i did like the Blue more. someone told me it's the more classic one. i bet a big beer fan like wookie would have a better answer!

4 - no effect or maybe less than a fraction of a percent - i'm pretty sure there weren't bots going in my games back in the day or even now really. and the few i can recall certainly were big losers.

5 - well if i'm properly rolled for the game i call every time because we're a slight favorite getting the money in and i don't mind variance.

6 - your biggest misconception? i don't know you that well but i think if you trolled less and posted more hands and grunched more it'd certainly help your game!

7 - miles is a hell of a poker player and having come through the micros knows what we're thinking since he went through it before.

8 - lol stands for laughing out loud. a synonym is lawl and a stronger synonym is rofl.

9 - i don't think so, because lee jones and the RNG are too strong and nigh uncrackable. a good question is can God create such a strong rng that even He can't crack it?

10 - from your heart.

hey blzd, are you considering fr nl or 6m nl? there are some notable differences. a main thing to keep in mind is that the importance of position is even greater in nl, i've found. the value of all pocket pairs goes way up as well, and tptk hands go way down in value. in a 6m game for example you should be raising all pps first in from all positions but in fr that might not be advisable. but in fr if there are aggressive guys in late position then they're gonna make it unprofitable for you to limp small pps up front. just a random example there.

if you were a total noob with 500 i'd say start at nl 5, or maybe 10, fullstacking, and just play a tag pf game, being tighter from early position and opening up more later, seeing the flop with your pocket pairs and good hands, and not stacking off lightly postflop. check out some posts in the forums here or read some books to get an idea of basic play, bet sizing, and so on. remember if you're opening to 35 cents at nl10, that with 3 limpers you should be making it like 65 or 70 cents, or even 80. don't get tricky with your hands pf and don't slowplay postflop unless you have the deck crushed. guys will often call with flush and straight draws incorrectly so make sure you are consistently punishing them with the right size bet that makes them make a mistake!

good luck and check out the limit-nl forum as well as the 2 micro nl forums (fr and 6m). let us know how you do!

hi tyler, how's it going? thanks for your kind words and thanks for being a great micros member as well. always fun to get your opinion on stuff or to mock things on AIM. you're right that i am very nice and then i eventually snap at someone, get it out of my system, and go back to nice again! lately boz and smurph have just been the two targets but it's not really personal toward them. well maybe a little toward boz

if i could be any animal? i mean as you point out, non-pachyderm is a big limitation. i've always liked cats and it seems like if you're a well-set-up cat then your life is pretty much eat, sleep, play, and chill out like crazy, which sounds nice. not sure if that would be like a big lion or tiger or a house cat. lions have hyenas nipping at their balls which seems very unpleasant, but housecats are small, so that's important.

the hottest male poster is riku and it's not even close. have you seen some of his glamour shots? if not, can we get them posted somewhere? rawr. honorable mention is drmodern who is ruggedly all-american prep including the same sweater and same button down with popped collar underneath it. he's always the best-dressed at the foxwoods 2/4, that's for sure. least hot, not sure - davidc is kind of an odd looking fellow, sorry man i'm sort of odd looking as well as most people are surprised to see an eloquent elephant with a kill button!

i only speak english and spanish right now. i'm trying to teach myself french but it's slow. if i could insta-learn a language i'd pick a really hard one like mandarin or arabic that i think would be really useful, since the romance ones aren't nearly as hard especially when you already know one.

i think the meaning of life is to take care of those around you - friends, family, loved ones - to treat them well (do unto others, etc), try and make their lives as happy and fulfilled as possible. and then they hook you up in the same way, which is totally sweet and ballin.

ty for the kind words.

and yes i totally agree that babar is a classic for the ages, and for all ages.

well, playing poker is nice, and it's nice to make my living using my wits, but after a few years it's not as much fun as before. i still enjoy it, but not like at the beginning, and when it's a job and not a hobby you have to approach it more professionally and regulate it more. constantly learning new games is useful, and i think if i had a full time other job then poker could be a hobby again, i could move up and take shots, and those higher games would be more exhilarating. also after 750k hands i've seen almost everything so there's not as much novelty any more

probably the biggest reason i'll get away from it eventually is that it really messes with my schedule. it's hard to play as profitably or as often during the day because the majority of the games and most of the good games happen at night for americans (unless they open up all the euro sites to us again). as a result, i often play in the evening or all-night sessions which really destroys the quality time i'd like to spend with my gf, friends, or family, since during their free time (since most people work a traditional 9-5) they're free and i'm busy, or vice versa. also, i'd like to get health insurance somehow, lol.

gl to you as well in nl!

I think we lost a lot of American casual players (= fish, to large extent) with UIGEA. Those still willing going through the extra hassle (?) to play online are either making too good money to stop or just like poker too much -> they're on average pretty good. Even I noticed in my short poker hobby career how the profitable morning games (= late U.S.) died down considerably after UIGEA.


Anyways, nice stuff, much appreciated!


Some questions to the well:

-What are the conceptual leaps a learning poker player needs to make while progressing up the skills ladder?

-What conceptual leaps are in your opinion the toughest to make? For example something you struggled with or have noticed people posting here usually struggle with?

-Can you think of examples of some giveaways in hand posts, etc. that most clearly show that the poster doesn't get a concept?


Hmm.. a bit generic to answer shortly.

hi jaran, thank you for your nice comments.

you make a good point in re: nl. a fair bit of the time slowplaying, or going on reads, or letting a guy draw slightly unprofitably, is going to make you a bigger profit than just ramming and jamming your monster. on drawy boards i still advise fastplaying, ie pocket 2s on a 2kt with two hearts flop, mash it up right away on the flop.

i had a hand tonight where a lagtard opens, i 3bet kk, he called. flop k92 rainbow, he checked, i bet, he folded. checking behind looks suspicious to me and good opponents but maybe he's not good enough to realize it and consequently would bluff at it sometimes, or hit his 2 outer and give me his stack. obviously if you have 66, 5 limpers, btn raises, all call, and flop 662, you're going to want to milk it some

and yes my 'training' is something i have to unlearn sometimes, as you put it, for nl, but since i'm cbetting almost all the time hu whether i hit or not, if i wanted to start checking behind monsters i'd have to start checking behind air as well to balance my ranges, which i haven't gotten comfortable doing yet i think it's one of the next things i'll be working on.

on a related note, if someone opens pf, a tighter guy, and you have aa or kk, just calling can sometimes be more profitable than 3betting him, as you can stack him on a lot of lowcard flops if he has qq-tt or something like that, or if he has just overcards he'll fire again on the flop instead of folding to your pf 3bet. in lhe i'd never make a play like that.

good points!

okay i'm going to bed now, i'll keep answering tomorrow when i wake up, starting with EGO. thanks guys and keep it up! this is turning into a great well i think.

also i just realized 'sorry about the size i don't know how to make it bigger' from my response to snitch would be a decent nc thread title nomination, lawl

I thought about it at the time I read it, but I do the "that is what my gf said last night" type of jokes so often, that when with my close friends I tend to just smile in an inappropriate way, that makes them realize that what they've just said could be misconstrued in the most horrible way.

To get to the point (as my gf said last night, hehehe (and she is imaginary not inflatable, thank you)) I second that nomination.

Hi Babar, killer post!

1- Is it better to just play a session and review hands with PT and post whatever comes up? Or is better to begin and analyze a session with an area of your game in mind?

2- Which sites are offering the best poker and rakeback deals right now? I'm a microNL player, so these things obviously make a huge difference for me...

Thanks!

Hi.

There is a part of 2+2 dedicated to rakeback/bouns. Look under Internet Gambling, there are forums called 'Internet Bonuses' and 'Affiliates/Rakeback'.

Never really read them myself, but they might be helpful to you.

Hey BBB,

This has been a superb read, and you’re a real inspiration for me (and to most others at the micros) to improve!
I’m a lazy ass bum myself, so nothing’d please me more than to be able to support myself solely by playing poker. Your story kinda gave me a goal (which I hope to one day achieve but meh if I don’t)…

And I have some questions for the well:

- When did you start playing 9 tables, how long did it take to get comfortable playing 9 tables at once, and did you make adjustments to your play for that?

- How much time do you spend analyzing your own played sessions?

- When do you take notes on opponents when multitabling?

- If you don’t mind sharing, what’s the amount of rakeback you get on average /month or /number of hands played?

- Do you think NL will completely take over limit, or do you follow Mason Malmuth’s beliefs that NL will eventually dry up and everyone will return to limit?
(bennyhana asked a similar question – if you answer his, you obviously don’t have to answer mine unless you think both questions are not so similar)

- What’s your favourite movie? Favourite actor? Favourite actress?

- A sphincter says what?