I think when you're dealing with variance, you have to understand your bankroll and how swingy it can get. Also, your playing style TAG/LAG and overall aggressiveness will increase/decrease your variances. I think I need to build my poker bankroll from where it is now, < 5k to at least 10k before I even consider taking shots at higher limits.

What I need to do is 1. write down my session results (someone made this pt above. ty) and 2. put in volume. even if i can go twice a month, i can put in some decent hrs given the competition at 1/2.

By being more patient and letting the situation come to me, rather than forcing the issues, I think I can definitely become a winning player in the long run at 1/2 and maybe 2/5. I think building the bankroll is important tho.

Borgata or Parx this weekend!

minraize-since you said people play pretty well preflop and dont put money in when they are behind at 1/2, then they should be folding almost their entire range if you 3b them right? ive found 3b in position to be very profitable because most 1/2 players setmine for the worst prices so a cbet takes it down very easily, and the other times they just fold pre,

i feel like im a pretty good hand reader and i think 3b light puts a good dynamic in the game. im also pretty damn LAGy so it just depends on your image i guess. i also have millions of hands online so i guess being a LAG and putting people on ranges might be a little easier for me then most.

not arguing with you just wondering i guess if you coudl expand a little more on what your logic is in 3b a depolarized range pre

5k is fine for 1/2 - swings should not be very large - games are pretty passive.
2/5 - I started at 1/2 with 6k and waited to double it to 12k before I moved to 2/5

The following is what I track using a simple XL spreadsheet - I graph monthly totals and $$/hr by session:

date.....$$ / hr....play hrs....$won....$lost.....$$ tally.....won:loss......Total wins.....Total losses.....ave win.....ave loss...... $$ / session.... hour tally.....ave hrs.......hr total

$$/hr or winrate would be key
if you maintain a separate bankroll - $$ tally will be your roll

Just wondering, how many hours/days do you play a week/month? I'm wondering how much is sufficient for you to make serious progress in your game given that there is no online poker.

Do you think playing 2 weekends max a month is fine or do you suggest me to go to West Virginia (1.5 hrs away) on the off weekends on say a Sunday so i can at least get 6-7 hours in if I decide to stay in DC?

Thanks basecrdshp

@OP-- I don't think there's a set amount anyone can tell you to play, or what times/games you'll do best in.

I personally have switched weekday mornings (zomg!), treating poker like a 9-5. I play laggy and the grinderfish and nits refuse to adjust. Of course, weekend nights are awesome and super profitable if you run close to EV, but my style is more suited to abusing the old-folks. Just a personal preference. I find that there are more solid, younger regs who play later in the evenings.

Send me a PM with your # if you make your way to Parx this weekend.

I focus all my attention on pot sizes and SPRs. After I put a certain amount of my stack in the pot I become pot-commited. I don't expect many of you to be able to understand these difficult concepts because they are counter intuitive. But it's okay because that is how I get all my money.

I like ur thread and I like the ten things -I think you could easily win at $2-$5 as there are always soft and often very juicy games at ctown -Im a $2-$5 reg there and I'm making good money playing 5 days a week 35-40 hours a week-I always like to keep my opening sizes the same though so I don't have to think about it and just encase people are paying attention -also don't be afraid to play against the regs because they are usually bad gl to ya

I hope they have an auto shuffler for that table that takes 12$/hr HA good god..

Getting back into live poker is just as easy as it was when you left. You need to be able to adjust to different playing styles and formulate a strategy to win at the tables you play. All this mumbo jumbo about 3 and 4 bet pots is still unheard of in live(at casinos anyways). if you 4bet and get called you're up against AA or KK if you get 3bet even at the 1/2 level you are up against AK+ QQ+. The game hasn't changed enough to stress about these new concepts that people use unless you plan on playing online.

Good luck with everything.

Oh and as an aside. Read the stickies and look at the past articles written they're very well done and WILL improve your game no matter how good you are.

lol

Will PM if I make it to Parx this weekend. Regardless where I decide to go, It should be a pretty profitable weekend.

Totally Absurd

I get that WV is soft and +EV, but the 1.5 hr drive / $12 per hour rake is kinda absurd don't you think? A 40 hr week at Charles Town = $480 in rake. Over a month that's almost 2k. Seems pretty detrimental to most poker bankrolls IMO.

Wut? I'll look back at my post but pretty sure I did not say they play pre flop well. I said it is the street they tend to make the least mistakes on other than putting in money in when behind. This coupled with the premise that they will give up smaller pots easier than larger ones leads to light 3/betting making it harder to take pots away on later streets. The logic for 3 betting a depolarized range weighted to value hands is that we don't need an image as a light 3 better to get value from our premiums, the average ssnl player is not going to notice we are 3 betting an unbalanced range and they will not fold at the frequency they should be. (they want to see flops) IMO we should be taking advantage of out post flop edge by keeping pots smaller pre-flop and bloating them against the stations with our big hands. ABC and exploitable? Yes, but likely the best standard strategy for ssnl live until casinos start 6max games. At the end of the day we should be adapting to each table/vil but the op wanted some foundational suggestions.

This sounds exactly like an A_T quote.

2 Other Things I need to work on are:

1. Not playing when I'm tired. This Friday I will have gotten up at 7am for work, worked 8 hours, drove for another 4, and plan to play 6 hours of poker. That might be a little too much. It might be worth it to rest a few hours when I get into Philadelphia and mentally prepare myself. Playing 6 hours of poker isn't too much fun after working/driving an entire day.

2. Stay out of the pit games. As much as I "have an edge" vs the casino in BJ, it's definitely been a habit I'd like to get out of. Too many times and I making bgi mistakes and letting the game get to me mentally. If I plan on being a big winner in poker, I need to recongize discipline and not grind BJ too.

I'd say those are 2 leaks outside of the table that I've got to work on. Feel free to chime in on any you guys have/ been working on.

Glad someone noticed. BTW, how did that 5-10 hand where you had pocket kings and the board was like AAxxx and you got min check raised turn turn out?

I work a regular weekday job. Leave Fri after work. Drive about 2 hr to get to a/c. Play till somewhere between 1 and 4am. Saturday (day) I spend with the wife and get back to the poker room between 6 and 8 depending on dinner and again play till 1-4am. This only gives me about 10-15 hrs/wk or 40-60 hrs /month. After 500 hrs you should know whether (or not) you are a winning player. After 1000 hrs your winrate should be somewhat consistent. Keep in mind everyone runs bad. My run bad segments lasted about 200hrs.

Keep in mind that everybody is different and what works for me may or may not work for you.

General conscensus is that at 2/5 live, the top winrate is $25-40/hr.

LMK if you ever make it to the Borg (PM me)

Thanks will do. Still up in the air about Parx/Borgata this weekend.

The action at CT makes up for the high rake. My biggest problem playing 2/5 there is giving the regs too much credit because they have the appearance of thinking players. Don't be surprised when they cold call a river raise on a paired board and flip over the ass end of a straight.

1. You're playing 2/5 so I think even paying $12 an hour should be reasonable. I think Borgata charges you $10 per hour to play. But 1/2 is entirely different, and when you're paying the same amount at two drastically different stakes, it's pretty big.

2. I tend to not give players credit for being "thinking" players unless they can prove to me that they are. Most players play there hands "face up" or "fit or fold" so I generally categorize them as these types of players before i think others. Then of course the drunk donkeys who calls 3bets w/ Q5o pre and bluff chasing every street are even better!

After scouring the forums for the last few days, I've been realzing that people are thinking about folding way to much in spots where it should be definitely a call.

They're considering folding river full houses and the 2nd nuts when a few worse hands exist. I believe people need to understand that the typical 1/2 grinder will play worse than your online player and can show up with much worse hands than you think.

People play AA and KK like they are the nuts even if it gets all in on 99TJ6 board.
I know that people rarely go bananas and bluff, but AA on this board might not be a value hand on the river if there is a ton of action. However, it might seem that way to the villain so they will convince themselves to value bet/raise it.

Just something to consider at the tables when evaluating your villain on a range.

lol wut? Live players are complete stations preflop. Most openers have a tight enough range that 3bet bluffing them is baaaaad.

The biggest key to a beginning player developing into a winning player at LLSNL is the ability to god damn value bet. As in, you flop top set 4 way and bet more than half pot.

I see way too many players do **** like betting 80 dollars into a 240 pot on the turn with a good hand. That's normally an awful idea. You got a good to decent hand, keep betting until you get raised. Go from there.

Other concepts are nice to have, but simply being patient and valuebetting is all you need to be successful.

We bet 120 into 240 with top 2 in a 4 way pot and get raised all in for another 300 on a 8 J Q ss board. What do we do?

We should not be putting ourselves in tough spots by "value betting" too much.

Coincidentally, I think the biggest probelm a lot of us have (myself included) is not having a concise plan for a hand.

I mean, obviously this is going to vary some based on the board and villains, but if that situation is a go to 'tough spot' for you then you really need to toughen up. If you have top two most of the time 120 is the minimum you should be betting.

The Micro FR forum here on 2p2 has a ton of good info that's applicable for low stakes live cash games. I highly suggest spending some time there, start with the COTW's, go through the stickies, figure out who the good posters are and search through their posts, etc.

I personally think it's crazy that anyone got good at poker before online (I'm kind of sort of joking). It's just so tough to put in real hand volume live and it's so much easier to let short term variance cloud your judgement. If you play live full time you put in about 60k hands or something a year? Lots of people put in more hands than that per month online (and I guess some people still do, lucky bastards).

Dont make ppl fold top pair ever. Only raise premiums. Dont iso light. Pot big hands (nobody had a clue to proper sizing at 1/2 imo). Dont 3b light ever. Fold when facing tons of heat with one pair. No hero calls ever. Dont think about image almost ever. Play draws more passively.

Easy game (seriously).