You realize your friend hustled you by not making it a 75/25 split for you, right? Or at the very least, 65/35. I know it led to $440 so you don't care but think about it like a gambler looking for +ev spots. I don't think your friend intended to hustle you, but you should've countered with what actually made sense, which was 75/25.

Quick online sesh. Won 2 buyins

So tonight I'm planning to put in another 1/3 live sesh. But whilst I'm waiting for the verifier to arrive, I decided I was going to put in some volume at 25nl zone on Ignition.

Admittedly, I'd lost a lot of confidence after going on a 14 buyin downswing online, and that led to me taking over a week off online poker. But I refuse to go into avoidance mode again. I've had more than enough time to recover mentally from that downswing, so it's time I jump straight back in and push for more volume.

I played for 1 hour today and won 2 buyins. Whilst this might sound like a very small win over a very small sample size, it still gave me a much needed confidence boost, and more motivation to put in extra volume in the future.

Some notable hands:

Hand 1: Choosing how much value to go for

$20 effective (I lost a pot and didn't have time to reload)
Villain limps $0.25 UTG
Hero raises $1.10 CO with Qc Ts
Villain calls $1.10

Flop ($2.55) is Kd Jc 7c

Villain checks
Hero bets $0.77
Villain calls $0.77

Turn ($4.09) is Kd Jc 7c 9h

Villain checks
Hero bets $2.79
Villain calls $2.79

River ($9.67) is Kd Jc 7c 9h 3s

Villain checks
Hero bets $10.33
Villain calls $10.33

So on the river, our stack was $15.26. I contemplated jamming, but thought that maybe the bet was a big too big. The pot was actually slightly smaller than $9.67 because this was pre rake, so it would've been almost a 2x overbet jam, which I thought was excessive. What do you think about the river bet sizing?



Hand 2: I think I'm quite capped here

$62 effective
Villain opens $0.75 UTG
MP calls $0.75
CO calls $0.75
Hero 3bets $4 BB with As Kc
Villain calls $4

Flop ($9.60) is Js Jc 4c

Hero bets $3.05
Villain calls $3.05

Turn ($15.70) is Js Jc 4c 3s

Hero checks
Villain bets $10.10
Hero folds

I can't help but feel what a disgusting spot this would've been if I had QQ-AA here. Like how would I even play it? Would I x/c turn and then x/f river? How would I play Jx too? Do I even have many Jx hands in my range here to begin with?

Hmm I see what you're saying. By accepting a 50/50 split where I've put in 50% of the buyin (as opposed to being staked the full buyin), I'm effectively just donating half my win rate away.

But the way I see it is: he was generous to me and overpaid me for the work that I did, so I don't mind being generous in return.

That’s a pretty ridiculous markup. Normally when you sell action, a 50% stake results in 50% of the winnings and losses.

That's not what I'm referring too. $100 for work. or $200 to play and chop it up. 50/50 isn't even close to fair for 6b. 6b actually has half of his action here and should get a better split than 50/50. Sure there's an opportunity cost and that's why I mentioned 65/35 instead of 75/25. 50/50 is absurd.

Okay I'm going to counter everything you've just said:

1) The majority of people are stupid. Plain and simple. Being in the top 5% of a certain field, whatever that field may be (poker, chess, maths, etc.), actually isn't that hard if you really apply yourself and dedicate yourself to that field.

2) The live casino I play at has the worst rake in the world. Way worse than the rake on any online poker site. And yet that's still beatable. In fact, it's more than just beatable: it's crushable. If your opponents are bad enough, you can play with horrible rake and still profit.

Poker actually does owe me something. If I put my money in with AA and someone else puts his money in with KK, then I'm entitled to 80% worth of EV from the pot. Playing a better strategy than my opponents means that I'm entitled to win money in the long run.

A.) From what I've seen of 25nl so far, the competition doesn't look that fierce. People aren't genuises. They're not pulling sick bluffs, insanely thin value bets, making great laydowns, 3betting and 4betting in the right spots, etc. People seem fairly exploitable at 25nl. I'm not saying that I'm currently playing perfectly and exploiting them in all the right spots, but I'm confident that once I learn more about how they play, I'll be able to exploit them better in the future and start winning. I don't need to currently beat something to know that I'm capable of beating it in the future. And whilst you could argue that the pool does improve over time, their rate of improvement is so slow that I think it's fair to say that I'll overtake them at some point.

B.) Plenty of people beat 25nl online. But you know what? All the best players move up to 50nl and then 100nl and so on. So the people who stay at 25nl for very large periods of time are generally the bad ones. All the good ones leave the pool after a certain period of time. So however difficult the 25nl pool is supposed to be, it's actually softer than that because most of the winning players leave and most of the losing players stay.

Anyway, I don't want to beat a dead horse here. I don't want to be the guy that constantly talks about how beatable 25nl is when I haven't actually beaten it yet. So I'm just going to focus on grinding, putting in volume, and letting the results speak for themselves.

Maybe you haven't been here long enough but it really isn't surprising he calls there. GG is a total nit preflop but a slave to SPR and "pot commitment" post flop. This allows him to make mindless decisions post flop and still win some money because it's generally true in a low SPR spot we should not fold an overpair. But there are exceptions. It's important to incorporate reads and a very loose passive guy donk jamming over 2x the pot just has it much more often than not.

I don't think calling is a big mistake. You're good decently often. Just not 41%.

This is a dangerously illogical argument for a gambler. It should be extremely obvious why, but I'll explain it like you're 12.

Suppose I work for a year and at the end for good performance am offered a bonus. I can take it in the form of 5000 dollars or shares in the company stock. The shares are currently worth 5000 dollars and expected to go up in value but the market is volatile. I take the shares. Over the next year the stock has doubled in value. I sell the shares for 10000 dollars. I then take my 10000 dollars and buy shares in a risky startup. The startup goes bankrupt. My wife is furious with my irresponsibility as we could have used the 10000 dollars, but I explain it wasn't my money. It was a bonus from the company. It started from my 5000 dollar bonus so I didn't lose 10000 dollars.

Except I did. I had 10000 dollars and chose to make a high risk investment, then after losing came up with an absurd justification.

This is exactly the same as your situation aside from time periods and nature of the risky investment.

You work for some period of time and are paid for that period of time. You're given the choice between 100 dollars and investing 200 dollars in your poker game on a split. You win 440 dollars after the split. This is your payment for the work. You now have 440 dollars. It's your money. You worked for it and have an oral contract with your friend establishing it is your money. Suppose you then play poker with it and lose the 440 dollars. You have now lost 440 dollars. You shrug it off because it started out as your friend's money.

Don't you realize this is how acquiring money works? Somebody pays you or gives you money or you win it. That money is legally yours.

Another analogy, poker this time.

I deposit 100 dollars online. I grind it up to 5000 dollars. I now have 5000 dollars. I then play 1000NL until I go broke. At the end I say "oh well, I only lost 100 dollars." NO. I lost 5000 dollars.

You are exhibiting the exact logic used by gambling addicts. You know, the kind who won a 100k jackpot in slots early on, then continue to play slots for 30 years, having lost 99k of the winnings. Oh well, they say, "I'm still up 10k over my lifetime."

You need to *wake up*. Whether you lose 440 dollars is not the point and relatively unimportant. You absolutely must cleave yourself from this kind of thinking if you want to succeed as a poker player. Otherwise there's nothing stopping you from taking your poker winnings and shot taking at 5/10/20 then saying "oh well, it was DLuo's money to begin with." Which of course would justify you playing responsibly on stake and being a gambling degen off stake.

Yeah this happens a lot in practice, but in theory, the idea of charging zero markup doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

Extreme example, but if you sold 100% of yourself in a tournament, you wouldn't give 100% of your winnings away. You'd want a portion of the profits to yourself.

Yet for some reason, when someone sells 90% of themselves, they are generally happy to accept just 10% of the winnings (zero markup).

I think it just comes down to people not understanding the maths behind staking/backing agreements.

Hmm I see what you're saying... I guess it comes down to saying "okay I'm currently in position X. Anything that happened in the past is irrelevant. My current financial position is position X and every decision I make should be based upon how I can make the best improvements from position X onwards".

It's similar to when you go on a huge downswing (eg. 14 buyin downswing) and then you win 2 buyins back and your mind wants to say "okay now I'm only 12 buyins down" instead of saying "no, I'm 2 buyins up, because the 14 buyin downswing that happened in the past is completely irrelevant. The past is the past and should have no bearing on my current decision making process."

Jeez how do you get 158 pages in 8 months? Couldn't be arsed reading it from the start but what I have read has been great, so i'm in.

Don't go blowing all your money away, glgl.

I don’t think you understand how selling action works.
- 6bme has $100
- 6bme wants to play poker but needs $200
- His friend gives him that additional $100 (50%)
- 6bme plays with $200, of which he has $100 invested
- 6bme gets 50% of his winnings / losses

This is how it normally works when you sell action. This is a short term once off deal.

The reason why 6bme currently pays 0% but gets 50% of the profit with me is because he is under a backing arrangement. This is a long term deal which has makeup, to minimize the downside of the investor.

Eureka he's got it!

This point is different but worth exploring.

You ARE 12 buyins down from the start of the downswing, but it doesn't remove that you just won 2 buyins and for your current session are 2 buyins up. It also does you no good to dwell on being in a downswing. Really swings are constructs we invent and have no bearing on how to play poker. The cards fall randomly. And wins and losses are dispersed randomly. Sometimes the losses cluster together (downswing) but how they cluster is irrelevant so long as you are making the most +EV decisions available.

For random variables, the past outcomes of those random variables have zero influence on the future outcomes of those random variables.

If you flip a fair coin and it lands heads 10 times, the chance it lands heads the next flip is still 50%.

The only way the past outcomes influence future ones is psychologically. If you dwell on the outcomes it can lead to bad decision making. Just be objective and make the most +EV decision possible. After that the cards will fall how they fall.

A lot of poker players get attached to strong hands when the board runs bad, instead of just making the best decision they can. I'll give you an example.

1/3 game with 600 stacks. Hero is OTB with 44sd. UTG 15 LJ calls CO calls hero calls.

Flop (60) T74cch

UTG 30 CO calls Hero 100 CO calls

Turn (290) T748cchc

CO 125. He is a nit who won't call a worse hand than we have so we call thinking he usually has at least a straight, maybe T8s.

River (440) T7486cchcc

CO jams 360. Our previously great hand is worthless. Where some make a hopeless call we make an easy fold. We made the best decision we could at each point so we move on untilted, knowing our bad luck this hand has no influence on our luck the rest of the session. It's easy after a hand like this to think "I just can't win" and start tilting. But it's best not to concern yourself with luck and think of each decision point as a separate event. I like to think of it like solving a puzzle. Sometimes iit'san easy puzzle, sometimes not. Okay, we got a tricky card, what's the best move here? Rather than "damn it this always happens I get the worst turn in the deck".

Just be objective and try to make yourself emotionally numb to outcomes. This includes both losing and winning. Euphoria while winning can be just as dangerous as dysphoria while losing. Be zen young man.

absolutely disagree with '$30/hr at crown 1/3 is pretty doable' especially with $15 rake. pretty doable implies that most half competent low stakes live player would be able to achieve this. i can assure u that the majority of the crown pool would not be winning at this WR over any substantial volume (on 1/3).

I disagree.

Yeah you can't ask your friend for a bigger stake or markup without coming across bad imo. If it's really your 'friend'. Not in this case. Just trust your gut on that one, your friend put up half the money and if he didn't you'd have half as much to play with. A 50/50 deal was good/fun/fair for both of you.

Allow me to try to capture the spirit of the thread. 6betme is apparently enough of a winner that he's gotten a stake and been sunrunning in the last ~50 hours of play. Before going on stake he had a part time job delivering pizzas, a few thousand dollars and bought his girlfriend an $850 phone while people ITT lost their minds. He quit his job and lost money or broke even while continuing to have high living expenses including spending about $45 a day on KFC and playing lots of Runescape(whatever that is) and not much poker. I see a lot of myself in OP. I'm a 32 year old bum living in a van.

Yep you might be right about that. I meant to say I think it is pretty doable for myself and the poker friends I associate myself with / stake. I’d like to think I’m surrounding myself with the top %% of the winners in my stake, as a result of this, we help lift each other up and achieve those WR’s. Could be wrong though, it’s just my opinion.

This kind of ******ed rationale is something only gambling addicts manage to come up with in all seriousness. JFC!

Thread is absolutely delivering again,no doubt.

Others have been spoonfeeding you like a child, but here we go again: no, you wasnt freeolling, and you _do lose $440- because that amount of money was in your hands.

If i bink a donkament for $10K and then tilts it off at the blackjacktables, i cant say to myself "Oh well, i basically lost zero-cause i am in the same position i was before binking that donkament". Its complete BS of course, because once i binked that $10K, that money is mine and in my pocket. If i then choose to lose it on blackjack, i for sure lost exactly $10K of my own money.

14bi aint a huge downswing not even close, you should focus on the past and maybe try learn from your mistakes so you don't keep repeating them dumbass.

Why do you think I'm posting hand histories from my online sessions, genius?

Who knows? so you can get more free advice to ignore then just do your own stupid thing anyway, Curious how do you even get into casinos when you just started high school? thought you had to be over 18 does mummy pack your lunch for the casino also?

I don't ignore advice. I consider everything that people tell me, then I look for where one piece of advice contradicts another, and then I make an assessment on which piece of advice I want to follow.

Like if person A tells me "do X" and person B tells me "don't do X", it's impossible for me to please both people at the same time. You have to understand that.

Lol kid I'm 24. Well above the minimum age needed to gamble, drink, etc. And no, my mum doesn't pack my lunch. I moved out of home when I was 19. Been independent for the past 5 years.

Exactly. You've also got to ask yourself, if it's pretty doable, why isn't he doing it?

Who says I'm not making $30+/hr at 1/3?

As for the "most regs aren't making that much" argument: yeah because most of the regs at 1/3 are sh*t. They call too much, don't value bet thinly enough, etc.

Don’t forget to count the 40% of the pot you’re entitled to when you jam KJ vs Ax and win! Or the 20% of the pot you’re entitled to when you call the turn with a flush draw and win!

Poker has to TAKE THAT AWAY from your EV, as well





While I agree with this:

1a.) there is no guarantee that you are playing with a better strategy than the population.

1b.) if you are hovering around breakeven, your winrate probably looks VERY SIMILAR to many of the players in the pool. So I don’t understand why you can say that your strategy will propel you to the top, while the strategies of others with the same current win rate are going to be left in the dust.

2. Even if you have better strategies and are a slight winner in the game/strategy battle PRE-RAKE, the rake lowers everyone’s win-rate. There is a percentage of the player pool that are slightly beating the games, but not making any money.

———————-

I personally believe you should stop battling for small edges in micro/small stakes online, and just play live. As has been run into the ground in this thread, you can play vs worse players, for more money/livable wages.

Glgl

wut

KJ hand overplayed on river...chk or bet less
QQ hand should be 4bet vs a min raise and 2 callers (capped ranges and dead money) to about 130$
Your $450- take 100 put it aside move 350 and go to the strippers or be smarter and take the 450 and bank it. Wait till you get 1500 to 2k and then use it all and make deposits into sports betting sites to get the bonuses. You can then bet lay all bonus $ and return 70% of bonus. Rinse repeat all sites then multi account rinse repeat. You can make 1k a month doing this as side income.
Forget!!!! 25nl on ignition. Play live only and apps only. Learn on pokersnowie if you want to improve.
Aim for $60 an hr playing 1/3 at crown