i was a winning player from the get-go.
the only book i had was TJ Cloutiers (LOL)

of course, i started poker at casino san pablo, where the BI was $100 max
( 1-2 / $4 to go), and drug dealers would buy a rack and ship it in w/ 6T.

it's hard to find this nowadays, but it is possible to be a winner with very little knowledge, and just some common sense. (which is what i had going for me).

in retrospect the ultra-tight strategy that TJ expounded was perfect for this game. ( although hopelessly outdated now):
play AK, and pairs.
a monkey could do that, if he had the patience to force himself to do so.
easy game.

I would agree to an extent that bad plays win hands and standard plays lose hands. But, that can be said vice versa as well.

I think most of us tend to remember too many losses and not enough wins when we are making the "accepted correct play." (i.e raising as a 70/30 and getting sucked out on) But, that's where variance and the percentages come in. If we make the correct plays time in and time out we will be +EV. Obviously everyone makes a bad play or bad read over time but chasing every FD and OESD is obviously not profitable even though on some tables it may seem like it is. As, long as you are not offering the right price when you're ahead the "accepted or standard plays" are the way to profit at the end of the day.

All too often good players or people who understand the basics will get caught up on the here and now. When it's all said and done, we are running a marathon not a sprint. So, mixing it up is fine too keep your opponent off guard but making too many -EV plays is way too big of a leak to attempt to overcome.

I'll simply note that Phil Gordon hasn't had much success in poker for quite a while. This may be one reason.

I can invent a situation where there is some whale that is spewing 300BB an hour for 8 hours at a table. Everyone is going to be a winner at that table. At LLSNL, there are just extremely few whales like that. If you have big money, you're heading for the biggest game in the room, which is normally above LLSNL stakes. Someone at that level is not going to play at your local 6 table room. At LLSNL, they may be spewing, but they are only going to be spewing 3-4 buyins before they're broke and gone.

Drop the ego. Have discipline. Show patience. Value bet a TON. Live is NOT online....going back to the basics is much more profitable at the lower stakes than getting extremely intellectually in-depth with thinking processes as it was with online. A high majority of live players are either older droolers or 25 yr old wannabe Tom Dwan's. Fold when you know your beat and value bet with a made hand. Relentless bluffing is really really unnecessary. This style is probably a lil more boring but more profitable. I cant stress enough how important patience is.

First of all, kudos to dgiharris for so readily admitting that the million-hand profitability estimation is wrong. During my brief time spent on the forum, I have noticed that the contributors I respect the most are the ones who are willing to admit when they are wrong, or at the very least that are willing to acknowledge that multiple points of view exist.

It's been mentioned several times already, but if you're not familiar with Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, it's a book that's largely about our misconception of success, in which he invokes a theory credited to the research of K. Anders Ericsson, the 10,000 hour (or ten-year) rule. Ericsson researched the practice habits of the world's foremost experts in their respective fields, and determined that 10,000 hours is the minimum investment one must make to achieve greatness in one's field.

I think the question of profitability is a difficult one to answer, but since Ericsson has given us this 10,000-hour, ten-year standard for expertise, I think it's worth further examination. Let's face it, for various reasons, many of us will never be internationally renowned poker experts. Simple profitability is certainly a much more reasonable goal for most of us. But if we aim for expertise, we should be able to land comfortably in the realm of profitability. Bear with me as I attempt to take some of Mr. Ericsson's work and apply it to poker.

Born Ready

This statement and some other bits of OP hint at the sentiment that Ericsson's research seeks to disprove.

And we have to dispel ourselves of that notion if we stand a chance at improving through what the researchers call Deliberate Practice.

So if we're striving for expertise as poker players, simply logging thousands of hours at the table isn't enough. We can't breathe in poker knowledge simply by sitting in a poker room. We have to break out of our comfort zone and constantly focus on active learning.

This is why when someone on 2+2 claims to be CRUSHING XYZ game at A/B limit, the response is "Graph or GTFO" -- we as 2+2ers recognize the standardized methods for measuring "exceptional performance using scientific methods that are verifiable and reproducible."

In poker, or in any other pursuit, we all start as beginners. Ericsson describes as an example someone playing golf for the first time. We learn the basics and "focus on avoiding gross mistakes" (like live "misclicks" or acting out of turn).

If we look at 50 hours as it relates to live poker, it's an interesting number. It correlates pretty well with the same concept of just getting past the mistakes, developing a minimum level of proficiency that's necessary to play the game. We're not profitable yet, not even necessarily break-even, but we're officially in the game. In about 44 hours of table time, based on a rate of 30 hands/hr in live play, we will have been dealt all of the 1,326 hand combinations once. So at this infant stage of our poker career, we've gone once around the track, so to speak, just enough to get a feel for the flow of things, and that's about it.

Quick aside:
We have two extremes:
50 hours basic proficiency
10,000 hours expert level

with XXX hours profitability?? somewhere in the middle.

In another thread mpethy mentioned several of his (OL?) players were profitable at 50,000 hands. If that were live, that's ~1700 hours. Not sure how that translates to live or where the number came from exactly but I'd like to see stats from players who are profitable to find out when they reached that threshold. Someone like mpethy or anyone with real live stats please chime in here to add to this element of the discussion. I assume the number will be widely variable but we can't know until someone shows us.

Anyway, at this stage (50 hours) we've entered the arena of casual recreational play (as described in Ericsson's golf analogy, it's a "social outing"). For the next period of hours at the table, things start to become more rehearsed and less scary. We're getting more comfortable. We have approached enough similar situations now that we can develop a rudimentary playbook for the spots that come up most frequently (e.g. what to do when our TPTK type hand misses the flop 7 out of 10 times and we're checked to in position). This is a critical turning point, because for many....

(back to the golf analogy)

Why? Well...

Just one shot. That's all you get in real life. Ericsson describes "simulation challenges" for professionals like nurses, for example. These are exercises developed to put the participants "real world situations" where decisions can be made and evaluated on their merit compared to actual outcomes. A poker player's equivalent test is a hand history. Hand histories allow us not only to review previous action, but to play out alternate scenarios and consider different lines that weren't considered at the table. HH's can also be developed from scratch as a basis for developing theory that's applicable in similar spots.

Intuition Bias

This is a leak I see discussed quite a bit; I think it happens to each of us from time to time. Ericsson calls it "intuition bias." Poker players call it "autopilot."

Think of the old nit. That guy has been using the same playbook for decades. But a relatively "fresh" player, as long as he has played in a similar situation before, can always be prone to autopilot. The difference is whether one recognizes the penalty that's being paid for the automatic play, and whether one works to correct it.

This is what we mean when we talk about a "thinking player." Nothing is automatic and every decision is new. Certainly past experience will play a role, but that is usually trumped by the more relevant dynamics of the current situation.

So informed intuition involves constantly thinking, staying on your toes, always reevaluating even commonplace situations. If the old nit spent even a small amount of time thinking about alternate lines, new ideas in poker (as little as 2 hours a day), he might stand a chance to keep up with the newbs!


Plugging the Queen's Leak

Having experience in something like chess is great preparation for a poker player. Plan your hand.

If you don't plug your leaks, you'll sink. This goes back to what I mentioned above (remember?) about being able to admit when you're wrong and having an open mind about how you can think about something in a different way. I love reading about other players' leaks on 2+2, because it generally reminds me of all the ways I can work to improve my game. Plus it's fun to commiserate.

Then again, I think it's possible to focus too much on our weaknesses, even though they do deserve our thought and attention. Sometimes we're worried so much about plugging leaks that we forget to acknowledge what we do well as poker players. This becomes extremely important when we're at the tables trying to identify the specific reciprocalities we can exploit.


Shorter High-Quality Sessions

Both, I think. BTW I don't totally agree with the bold, but I know what you mean. How is poker like playing the violin?

When "famous violinist Nathan Milstein" asked his violin teacher how long he should practice, the reply was:

Potentially the most flame-inducing part of this write-up. ... I've noticed a lot of 2+2ers advocating longer sessions for greater profits. I think this is a false choice. I suppose if you want to treat your poker life like some kind of sweatshop business and only sweat yourself for maximum value, then that's good advice. But if your goal is to be continuously learning and improving your game, you're much better off playing shorter sessions.

I know a lot of people will claim that they can maintain their highest-level game for periods of 8-12 hours+, but I think a high % who make that claim are leveling themselves. The fact is you'd be much better off shortening your sessions and if you can't bring yourself to stop thinking about poker: read a book, listen to a podcast, post on 2+2, or evaluate hands from the session. At least then you're engaging in a different way. Perhaps this is one place where the pursuit of Poker Expertise and Poker Profitability will clash.


Coaches and Mentors

I will just let the text speak for itself on this subject since there are others who have more toe say far better than I. And I'm tired, and it's late. And I have about 50 hours of table time logged, still worrying about spilling my chip castle and ending up all in. So I'm far from needing a coach.

But I will say that 2+2 is a great community where I've found many folks I consider to be mentors.

The source for most of the quotes above is "The Making of an Expert" by K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely, originally published in the Harvard Business Review July-August 2007. If you somehow managed to finish reading this post, I recommend reading the article. It will probably be a quicker read and more intelligible.

Good luck at the tables, sexperts!

...well thought out and well put fold4once...

Away from the table work+more away from the table work= high win rate

My sentiment exactly! I'm a horrible player ... my only saving grace is that most players are more horrible than I.

The Greater donkey theory.

great post fold4.
honesty is the best policy.

it ruffles my feathers at the table when someone suggests thati i'm not being honest.
i'm ruthlessly honest with myself., and honest enough with others.

so what if my chips lie sometimes?
it's a game.
I don't lie, and i'm an honest man.

they can believe whatever they want to believe.

this goes for everyone except PI, imo.

Fold4once gets a gold star. That post needs to be put away in safe place.

Who is PI?


_______________________________

I think to become profitable at LLSNL, the amount of hours required is somewhere around 500-1000 or so. Perhaps if someone runs incredibly bad or good, this may not be enough, but I basically started from scratch, and I have probably played about 400. I've logged my last 180, and have been profitable over those. I don't know if these 180 hours are still too reflective yet, because over my last 80 hours I am way, way up. Whereas the first 100 hours I was way, way down. Of course my game has gone up significantly over my last 80 hours, and I'm making significantly different plays over my last 40, than I was in the first 140, but again who knows? These are small sample sizes. Maybe I am just running good.

Still, this I know for a fact, at this point I am not a huge loser. Over my last 80 hours, I am up 5.5BB/hour. So being conservative, I'd say at worst I am a 2-3BB/hour loser. In other words, I feel I am definitely one of the better players when I sit down at a 1/2table, but I may not be able to beat the rake + tips. Recently I have been, but that could be me just running good.

I study my game several hours a day, have coaching 2 times a week now, and like many on this forum- am obsessed.

As I log more and more hours, we'll see, but claiming you need 10,000 hours to know if you're good or bad is ridiculous. Unless you run like amazing, after 50 hours of live play,you will be losing money. The rake (plus beginners tend to over tip), will catch up to you by 50 hours. And by your 100th hour of live play, you start to see what is working and what isn't. You will still have major leaks (I have many), but with as soft as 1/2 live is, you can minimize them.

Great post.

To clarify what I said that fold4once paraphrased:

I have done database reviews and coaching for over a thousand clients. Many of them, perhaps as many as 25%, were micro stakes players who had fewer than 50,000 hands total poker under their belt. The vast majority of these players were beating their stakes.

I had only mentioned that because it tended to refute the million hand claim that dgiharris made in another thread and then retracted (well played, sir) in the OP of this thread.

It is important to note that I am not claiming that these micro grinders who were beating their stake within 50k hands are typical or average or that any player can replicate their success. The population of players that comes to me for database analysis can best be described as "winning players dissatisfied with beating the game at a merely good rate." In other words, they are mostly overachievers who are looking to be one of the biggest winners in their game and to move up through the stakes rapidly.

That said, I can say without qualification that among this group of highly motivated players, being a winner within 50k hands is absolutely routine.

Unfortunately, in doing my DB analyses, I never really paid any attention to just how quickly people became winners. So, while I can say with confidence that a smart, disciplined and highly motivated person can easily become a winner within 50k hands, I can't tell you exactly how many fewer hands it takes on average. It simply isn't an important issue when you are talking to someone who has already played 50k hands and is already winning.

The real issue isn't how many hands but how much thinking and experience you gain from them.

agreed. we have this discussion frequently over in uFR when people who are 24 tabling NL .05/.10 post graphs of big months. "Um, why aren't you playing 4-6 tables and actually learning from the hands you play so you can move up faster?" type discussions.

I actually think table time is one of the least efficient ways to improve your technical skills.

As I have posted elsewhere (because it made such a huge impression on me): a young internet hot shot was on the 2+2 pokercast a few years ago announcing his retirement from poker at the ripe old age of 24 or something. Asked why, he explained he was quitting because he was "tired of grinding pokerstove 8 hours a day."

I like the idea behind this thread a lot. As far as I'm concerned, becoming a solid player is all about building a strong technical understanding of the game and along the way learning the psychology of villains you face. Every villain will be different but I think you would be surprised at how many of them react very much alike (as far body language and reads are concerned) at the table.

Read as much poker strategy as you can. I'd recommend reading a few books on cash games... notable ones include: Theory and Practice by Ed Miller, Professional No Limit Vol. 1 by Ed Miller & crew, Harrington on Cash games vol.1 and 2, also just got done reading "How I Made My First Million From Poker" by Tri Nguyen (it covers the mental part of the game more than the technical aspect but I liked it a lot). Read and participate in 2p2 LLSNL forums and from there just go play your game. Learn from every session.

A few easy tips:

1. As a bunch of others have already noted, stop playing marginal hands OOP. No need to be limp calling 67s UTG and stuff like that, we're lighting money on fire here.
2. Constantly be adjusting to your opponents. Figure out what kind of player they are and then tailor your style to counter his strategy.
3. Use bankroll management. I started with a 2k bankroll @ 1/2 (playing only very soft games), just reached $10k earnings at the end of January, 5 months and ~300 hours of play.
4. TRACK ALL OF YOUR SESSIONS! I can't stress this one enough.. you need to be able to keep track of your results, I use an app on my android called Poker Log which I find very useful.
5. Game select (if you have that luxury). There's no problem with finding an easier game to play.. if you are at a table of tough players in a casino, just get up and find a new one. It's not to say that you should go out of your way to avoid regs/tough players, but try not to get in over your head. Yes, playing these people will make you better at the game in the long run, but you will certainly pay for your lessons. I personally play a lot of underground games that bring about soft play and I play in these games whenever I can.
6. Recognize when you are on tilt and get off the table. As soon as you're not playing your A game you are risking your buy in so just take whatever you have and leave. If the cards aren't falling your way, guy next to you is a turd, you're tired, whatever, just let it go and leave. There will always be another game.
7. Finally... this goes for the bankroll management, use a stop-loss. I personally use a 2 buy-in limit (3 if I've gotten all in twice way ahead and lost) and it's worked wonders. My losses normally never exceed $400, whilst my wins were more consistent and larger.

Oh, and GL at the tables, cause you're gonna need some run good!

The answer, as almost always in poker, is "it depends." I say this as (not for a brag, but to establish some bona fides in the field) a teacher (professor technically, but I rarely profess anything) with over five years experience teaching adults in a professional field that they have chosen.

Some people get it immediately and some never do. Effort is also a very large factor, but the "leadership theory" mavens who tell you that anyone can become an expert in any field are completely full of it. Some people are definitely smarter in some fields than in others. This is not just making excuses for personal comfort zones, it is demonstrably true.

So the range of study/experience required for profitability will vary wildly depending on natural ability in math, natural ability in risk tolerance, natural ability in reading people, and discipline. For all that writers want to tell you that anyone can be Babe Ruth if they just try hard enough, deliberate practice is only part of what one needs. Overall intelligence and field affinity will also have a large influence on success.

I agree with these sentiments, particularly this idea of "field affinity". Some players are more suited to poker than others, given their education, employment history, psychological disposition, and, dare I say, genetic background. I've had this discussion---what makes a winning player---with others where I play, and generally it started with the question: If you were to stake anyone in this room at 2/5 and 5/10, who would it be? Interestingly, while one of the players who dominated the answers was a long-time winner, the other had only been playing full-time for less than six-months. Furthermore, this inexperienced player hadn't played on-line and was a relative novice when it came to poker theory. But he had a strong grasp of fundamentals, had played sufficient hours (but probably less than 1500, definitely not 10,000), and was a very good read of his competitors. Many of the things I've been attempting to improve in my game---how to table select, focus on weak players, protect a stack, 3-bet, 4-bet, value bet, adjust to aggressive/passive games, bankroll management, tilt control and so on---he seemed to do with natural ease. A key reason, in my view, why this inexperienced player was so profitable was his background as a professional golfer (a multiple tournament winner), where thinking clearly and performing under pressure are essential to success, as well as remaining focused and aware over a long period of time (4 hours plus); a keen competitive streak doesn't hurt either. It's also worth noting that professional golfers are constantly dealing with risk, not only on the course, but off the course as well, because they are paying travel expenses (up to $100, 000 a year) with NO guaranteed return, especially if they play or run bad or, heaven forbid, simply aren't good enough to make "the cut".

I'm a great fan of this thread (and the previous one which inspired it), but sometimes I believe these types of discussions neglect non-poker attributes that make a poker player profitable and I'm not just talking about psychology and tilt-management either. All the poker knowledge and experience in the world means nothing if you can't make good decisions when they matter the most. Sure, the idea of "deliberate practice" is on the right path here---so long as you practise the right things via hand analysis, mentoring and access to a sound knowledge base---but I still believe some simply have an edge because of where they came from, before they started playing the game.

A lot of players have stated that you have to be better than other players in order to be profitable (Which I agree). I thought I would spend some time discussing exactly who we have to be better than in order to be profitable at the 1/2nl and 2/5nl level.

Before discussing how to be profitable I believe there are THREE main components of poker and profitability. They influence each other.

#1) Mathematics/Strategy: This includes hand strength, ranging, position, pot odds, and pretty much every aspect of play that is interchangeable between live play and online play

#2) Psychological and Emotional Aspect: This includes mindset, emotional control, patience, tilt, frustration, fatigue, fear, risk averstion, adrenaline highs, and any other factor you can think of that comprises the "human" element.

#3) Observation, Assimulation, and Utilization of information: This component comprises the major difference between online and live play. Similarly, this component is dependant on a player's #1 and #2 ability.

The majority of players focus on #1 however, deficiencies in #2 and an inability to properly do #3 will prevent players from ever progressing.

Before I talk about beating the game, we need to define a baseline villain and how they compare to #1, #2, and #3.

Using 1/2nl and 2/5nl as a model a baseline villain is the typical recreational fish.

In regards to #1) The fish sees little difference between poker, blackjack, bingo, or the other table games. If you get dealt the right cards and the board is favorable (by the river of course), then you win. Simple. Just like blackjack, the fish does recognize that there are some favorable starting hands and situations but only thinks in terms of relevative strength and not so much in terms of absolute strength. If a fish (86) has a straight
BOARD: J T 9 7 J
, he is happy because he has a straight and a straight is a strong hand. The thought of being behind a fullhouse, flush, or even higher straight is irrelevant.

In regards to #2) The fish is likewise a slave to all the human elements and has zero problems letting emotions rule his decision making process. He will play "lucky cards" or "favorite hands" with no regards to #1. He will also believe in some inherent special ability that enables him to play his lucky cards or favorite hands profitably. Anger, fear, adrenaline highs, etc are huge drivers of his decisions impacting how he plays.

In regards to #3) The fish has little to no ability to properly observe, assimulate, and use information. Despite seeing a maniac bluff big 5 hands in a row, when faced with a big bet by the maniac the fish will say, "Wow you must have a set". Similarly, fish are fond of saying "I know you have nothing" right before they fold their bottom or even mid pair.

I believe the above more or less encapsulates the "average" 1/2nl and 2/5nl fish. Now, through brute force repetition/observation a lot of fish actually get better but the above factors are still at their core resulting in a host of mistakes that profitable players can exploit.

Then there is the matter of how BETTING factors into the above equations. Add all this up, and we have a baseline level of fish that we must be better than to be profitable. The further to the right we are on the bell curve, the more profitable we will be.

I believe numbers #2 and #3 probably come with experience. Tilt is for recreational gamblers. A winning player only plays when he/she believes it will be +EV to play.

Another huge factor is table behavior. If players don't recognize you or label you as a winning player, then you probably aren't one.

Huh! I don't think that's true at all. Winning players often tilt. They would be stronger winning players if they didn't, and it's definitely something to work on, but it's definitely not true that "tilt is for recreational gamblers."

Similarly, I don't *want* other players to recognize/label me as a winning player at LLNL. I get a lot more action from them because I go out of my way to look loose. OTOH, when I play donkaments, I like for other players to be afraid of my game, because I get less action and as the blinds go up, the value of stealing blinds risk free > the value of getting hands payed off. At LLNL, though, it's exactly the opposite.

Would you agree that too much emphasis is often placed on #1? Don't get me wrong, math/strategy is fundamental to profitable play, but it's primarily factual and relatively easy to analyse and teach to anyone with a serious interest in the game, even though mistakes are still often made in this area. In my view, most of the threads on this forum are dominated by ranging, pot odds, position etc, because, I would say, it's easier to get feedback on these aspects of the game and receive a logical argument as to whether you should have folded, called, raised a particular hand. In the end, this kind of game-improvement is about having a basic grasp of fundamentals (starting hands, pot odds, position, etc.) and then drilling the details through hand analysis.

How often, when reading a thread, do you feel you are "missing" information about the hand? This absent information generally relates to the insufficiency of player-type labels, such as LAG, TAG, Maniac, Regular, Recreational, Fish etc., In my view, there is not enough information given about the general psychological and emotional state of both Villains and Heroes. Maybe, this is because we don't have the language to talk about player dispositions in the same detail as we do when talking about math and strategy (or maybe we have the language but just don't use it because we feel we have to talk about the cards rather than the players). For example, when analyzing a hand, the Hero may have realized that his 3-bet amount of 3x for AA from the B/B was too low, which resulted in him playing a 6-way pot OOP, in which he ended up bet/folding the flop. So, through hand-analysis, he knows to make the 3-bet amount 4x or 5x next time, when playing this hand in the same position. But, of course, he probably already knew this information before he made the actual mistake. What Hero should be thinking about is why he made such a fundamental error. In many cases, it relates to his psychological and emotional state at the time (frustrated because it's the only big hand he's seen in hours and he didn't want to loose action).

I'm interested to hear more about component #3. I'm assuming you're talking about what information to focus on when playing live. Is this right? If so, how do we improve this skill? Also, what do you mean by "assimilation"?

facepalm