fyp

when multi talbing online, how often do you guys pay attention to seat selection?? there could be so many random factors that are different every session

1. playing so many tables you may have no actual read on any player besides statistical numbers, unless youve been playing thousands of hands against them and know how they play (this can be good and bad)
2. so many people come and go... a weak loose passive may be on your right for like 2 orbits and out of no where once youre paying attention again to that particular table theres another regular in his seat
3. tables are all full, get on waiting list for all of them...while you are waiting you notice 6 aliases at some of the tables that youve been noticing for the past month

sooo my questions would be:
do you actually not take THE seat if situations are reversed, where as a spot opens up but tight players on your right and loose players on your left?? or do you take the seat and note to self that you have to adjust??

what if a seat opens up and 5 out of 9 people there you have a sample of 5k+ hands??
would you choose not to take the seat cause they know how you play even though you know how they play??? i assume you would have a smaller edge over them
i feel like prime "fish" would be the people ive never seen before unless i have played 5k hands against them and remember/know that they are a losing player or just a rich donk that has money to light on fire

what if we(heroes) are THE good player of the particular stake/game, does seat selection not matter as much??

maybe these arent even valid points....but i want to know what you guys are THINKING when it comes to seat selection or when youre about to play multiple talbes


thanks guys, sorry my posts are so long..im an idiot

At most of the lower(ish) limits (say, below 2/4 or 3/6) I think table selection > seat selection. Above that, there's generally fewer bad/exploitable players and having good position on what may be the only one at your table becomes more important.

I'm generally keeping an eye on my table selection criteria throughout a session and looking for a new table when one of my current ones becomes bad (through bad players leaving and good players sitting down, generally). I think this is where being able to table select across limits or across sites even can really come in handy. The best 1/2 table may be more profitable than the best 2/4 table if the 2/4 table's still generally bad.

1) seat selection may be the single biggest contributor to your WR, once you've mastered the basics
2) I pay attention constantly to the quality of every seat on every table
3) Starting tables is the nuts
No, a bad seat is bad.

You're confusing loose/tight with something that matters a lot in seat selection. Think winner/loser and straightforward/tricky.

There are some very good posts on seat selection. I'd start there.

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In general, everyone can benefit from seat/table selection. If you are enough better than the regs, you may be profitable in any seat. However, some players give their money away quickly and some slowly...

Question-

Anyone know when exactly the deadline for PS's fpp/vpp is? Is it midnight EST tonight? or is it PST? or some completely other random time? Im super close to hitting platinum, but wondering how much time I have, and can't seem to find the answer anywhere.

I think it's EST, but don't hold me to it.

Edit: It's either EST or IOM time...

What a great forum! I've been playing in live cash games for 25+ years and now I'm ready to start playing online. Seems like there's a lot of benefits playing online rather than live.
Anyways, what site should I play at? I ussually play 5/10 or 10/20 fixed limit HE at the casino. Do both of those sites offer those games? Also, my son uses pokertracker3 as a tool while he plays. He tells me its simple. Is that the best tool on the maket for the game I play (flhe)? And is it necessary? Do all sites allow it? Any other advice would be greatly appreciated. I'll check back later for any responses. I'm hoping to set up an account this week and be playing by this weekend. Thanks again

Pokertracker 3 is fine. I use it. It's not necessary but really helps.

Online is harder than live. This is the general consensus. It's also been suggested that skill wise live stakes are comparable to online stakes one/tenth the live stakes.

I would personally start off at .10/.20. This will accomplish a couple things:

1) Get you used to the speed of online play, the feeling of how things go, multitabling, and how to use new things like Pokertracker.

2) Give you the opportunity to evaluate your own skill level while giving you hands to post in microstakes for review.

After a few thousand hands, if you're crushing it you can think about moving up to .25/.50 or .50/$1.

That sounds good. What site would you recommend I play at considering I only play FLHE. I dont like tournaments or NLHE. I know fulltilt and pokerstars are the 2 major sites. Theres many other things that are foreign to me too when it comes to playing online, such as rakeback. Will I be getting that as a new player? I know I will be getting a 1st time sign up bonus at any site, but the rakeback deal confuses me a bit. Thanks again

Pokerstars lacks rakeback, so it is a good place to start if you don't want to bother trying to set it up.

Consider a given limit online to be somewhere 5x to 10x as difficult as a given limit live. A 3/6 online game would be similar in quality of opponent to 20/40 live. A .5/1 game would be something like a live 8/16 or 10/20. Online opponents tend to be tighter and far more aggressive than their live counterparts. People can raise you on the turn with one pair or a draw; it isn't only the nuts like live.

No matter what, get in some hands below 1/2 before you try that limit. A lot of people have difficulty transitioning to 1/2, and you don't want to learn online play at 1/2 or higher (unless you're a winning mid-stakes live player).

You've gotten good advice so far from Doug and Sad Donkey.

As for what site to play I would say to go with Full Tilt and definitely sign up with a rake back provider. I personally use raketherake.com (PM me for a referral ) or go to the rakeback forum on this site and choose one of the rakeback sites that sponsor Two Plus Two as any site sponsor here will be reputable and will pay you on time every time.

I personally play 3/6 and 5/T and Pokerstars gets the lion's share of my action. I do enjoy Full Tilt though because the games tend to be easier and I just like a change of pace from time to time. Pokerstars's rakeback system really favors the "grinders" that is, the people who are playing, say 5,000+ hands/month at 2/4 and up. If you're not putting in that volume or playing at those stakes you're better off at Full Tilt with rakeback. The other drawback is that in my experience Full Tilt's customer service sucks hard. If everything runs smoothly and you have no trouble getting money on the site then this may not be an issue, but if you do run into problems god help ya.

Pokerstars has much better support and if you have an issue they usually get back to you within a day.

So there are pluses and minuses to both sites. Whatever you decide to do, do what others said - start at $0.10/.20 until you get used to the software and the environment. If you find that boring I don't think you're out of line starting at .25/.50.

As I said I play 3/6 & 5/T and I'm pretty sure I'm a losing player at the latter (trying to change that). Still I play in some 20/40 live games and sit at the table thinking, "Damn, I wish I could find a table this awesome online at my stakes!" So the online games really ARE way harder and it doesn't hurt to start slow.

Yea, definitely start small.

The 4/8 kill games I play around here run like the juiciest tables you would find at .25/.50 at Stars or Tilt.

I agree too that if you don't want to bother signing up rakeback etc., jump on Stars, but if you are relatively low volume and don't mind doing the rakeback thing, Tilt is probably better bet.

But yes Tilt customer service (and sometimes even getting paid in a timely fashion without unreasonable inconvenience) is pretty bad. Stars is WAY better in both those departments.

At low and micro limits I believe you will generally find decent games at both sites.

Greetings all! Returning to n00b status again after a bit of a hiatus, good to see nothings changed in the past half year or so! How are the OL games these days compared to 12 months ago? Big decision whether to do the OL LHE thing or live NLHE between contracts, as long as the OL games are still reasonably beatable would much rather be playing teh limited hold them.

Just wondering. Not sure whats right as I transition back to LHE.

Can someone reccomend what they think the best book is for small stakes limit holdem LIVE games. Thanks

100% 3 ways

Small Stakes Holdem, Miller & Sklanksy (I think they are the authors).

Lee Jones Small Stakes Holdem (or something similarly titled)

Then although not strictly for SSHE, I think Angelo- Elements of Poker is a great live poker book.

The blinds are $1 & $2, raises are $2-$4 preflop (can raise the $2 blind to $6 & it can get capped at $14 (3 $4 raises). Flop is a $2-$4 bet, turn & river is a $2-$8 bet (3 raises max each round). The rake is $4 and a $2 badbeat jackpot rake.

I have 3 months off in the summer with a $2-$4k bankroll just for poker. I'm thinking online poker might be a better option, but I really want to get out the house and socialize with people. This game is provided at the Isle of Capri in Biloxi, MS. I've played it once and the action was pretty loose. What preflop adjustments would you make compared to structure limit in a loose passive preflop game. Would you limp with weak hands like K10 & 45 suited up front. Thanks Fellas.

game is probably unbeatable with that rake. a better option would be to play online at lower stakes and get a regular job for money stuff. then go play live if you want every now and then for fun, or do other fun stuff to get you out of the house. welcome to the forum btw. a good book you should pick up is 'small stakes holdem' by miller and sklansky.

Thanks! I've read that book 5 times along with Lee Jones I just might do the online thing and covert to no limit.

Assuming you're in college or something like that, I strongly suggest that you find a summer job which will advance your career. People make careers out of poker but very few succeed - unless you think you have a shot at it, view poker as a hobby. It's nice to be EV+ at a hobby, but even if you lose money in the long run, it's like paying for entertainment. Any reasonable summer job (even those not related to your career) should pay significantly more than you can win at poker at this stage.

Calli's right that ABC play takes the life chips until about the 6 figure line of income.

Are you saying that doing normal life stuff (going to college, getting a degree, getting a normal corporate job, etc.) works well until about the $100k/year level?

Or that playing ABC poker against bad players at mid-stakes works well to get you making near $100k/year. At which point you hit kind of a tough ceiling where each additional increment requires a pretty large advancement in poker skill?

I think you mean the latter, but it's not totally clear.

I know this question has been asked before, and I searched. But I seen a lot of replies for online. But how about live, where the rake is $4 a hand and you do about 30 hands an hour?

What is the optimal strategy? Tight-Aggressive?

yes.