Original tweets that I liked a lot: https://twitter.com/Evan_ss6/status/1413540319476527106

Sharing for the remaining 2+2 audience.

Random throwback poker advice thread, especially for young players.

In poker people have different sources of motivation, but everyone who starts out plays for money. They want money to live the life they want to live. In poker, money won is the only way to keep score.

With that said, put yourself in the best positions to make the most money with proper risk management and without dependence on others.

That means: (Tip 1) don't do things to build your notoriety or get into ego matches.

There is barely anything out there for you as far as sponsorships if you're just another white 20-something male who plays cards. Focus on winning the most you can from the games. Recognize no matter how good you are, fish sustain the ecosystem as their money flows upstream.

(Tip 2) Don't play tournaments. This is simple:

a) less $/hour
b) higher bankroll requirement
c) less flexibility on schedule
d) higher variance

Wait, why do people play these things?

If you must, limit yourself to playing them as a minority of your volume/effort.

There are still lots of mid and high stakes games that are outrageously soft. If you're not playing/beating these stakes, you're either doing something wrong or you don't have what it takes.

Another area to be honest with yourself is playing private/app games.

Don't get blinded by "ZOMG everyone here sucks!!" or how much your friend won.

a) what is the rake?
b) realistically, how much are these bad players losing in bb/100?
c) are you the best, 2nd best, 3rd best? This matters A LOT
d) do you trust game integrity+payouts 100%?


(Tip 3) Be honest with yourself.

This applies in lots of ways but firstly, if you're not playing 5/10+ within a year or so, you may want to take a serious look at your habits, consider coaching, spending more time working with software, or working on performance anxiety.

Tip 4) If you don't already play PLO and PLO8, what are you thinking?

Games are far softer, recs enjoy the action, variance allows them heaters which makes it more fun for them -- the list goes on. There is plenty of action in live rooms and across the internet.

(Tip 5) Don't get caught in the false dichotomy of "GTO vs exploitative"

Great players know how and when to take liberties but almost always have very strong theoretical fundamentals.

(Tip 6) Don't get backing or sell tons of action.

If you can't build up the roll to play high stakes within a year or two, you have no business selling action to play higher stakes. It's still easy -- trust me. Do it on your own and keep all the spoils for yourself.

I tried to make these general so there are of course some exceptions and special cases but the general points stand.

If you have what it takes and put in the work, there should be no excuses and you should rise to the highest stakes games available to you in time.

Tournaments are where the fish are.

Thought it was overall decent advice. Especially since he added the caveat that he's generalizing and there are exceptions. Tip 2 I agree with the premise of don't play tournaments (as your main game) although mainly because of flexibility/sustainability. Guess it depends on field size as well. Fish love tournaments though and it's generally softer so idk if I agree that it's always less $/hr. But unless you are already financially set it seems like a pretty brutal lifestyle to depend on large field mtt for your main source of income. I also don't think tip 4 is always true. I do think it's good to be proficient in as many games as possible (including limit games) so you can take advantage of any situation. But there's enough good games going at nlhe still and it's easier to play more tables so I think hourly wise nlhe is prob the better path if you are already a strong nlhe player. PLO has a lot more variance so for an already established nlhe player to fully transition you'd need it to be worth the hourly you are giving up during the learning curve period and then imo I'd want the expected hourly to be at least 20-30% higher long term for it to be worth the added variance. Tip 6 I think makes sense assuming you aren't getting quality coaching along with the financial backing. There's a lot of exceptions though once you get to a certain point. There are a lot of situations where there's a +ev game but you feel it's a negative impact on your life to go through giant $ swings. Or it's a temporarily available bigger game where if you happen to run bad in it you are buried and then the game disappears and you want to avoid that for longevity/stress reasons.

Tax implications of tournaments are the worst

Like the tips except for 4. PLO has been the game of the future for at least the last 40 years. Most poker players are under rolled for NLHE. You need a much bigger one for PLO for the variance. This means that the player pool gets decimated over time. Noobs like the action right up to the point where they lose a few buy ins quickly and leave.

That's true if you aren't playing 5/10 or higher within your first year of poker you're a lazy untalented unmotivated fish. You should've ran up a solid five figure roll at this game you're brand new at and if you wasted your beginners luck sorry you don't have what it takes.

That's why i stopped sex long time ago...

I wonder if it is referring to 5/10 live or online

lol @ thinking some pussy limit game where you can only bet up to the size of the pot is "the future of poker"

also there are numerous reasons why securing backing can be a wise decision. securing backing can open up opportunities for coaching, networking, and can free up capital to do other things in life with. also allows you to take shots in bigger games and fade downswings without having to drop down in stakes.

not everybody's 'hard work' is rewarded by the variance gods with a lightning fast ascension through stakes, most people don't even know where to begin with doing effective lab work, and not everybody is good at managing money.

i dont do twitter, but there's nothing really insightful or unique about the OP, which is unsurprising i suppose

Legend

I'm generally an anti-tournament person, but I believe live tournaments are the most profitable form of poker at this moment. Live tournaments are crushing guarantees all over the country. We had an online resurgence during the lockdowns and now we are having a live resurgence.

Don't think this is true in most cases. They are likely the softest form of poker but not the most profitable. If there's a bigger buyin main event that is soft (WPT $3500+ mains or WSOP 10k ME come to mind) and you have all of yourself and you are a top end crusher who has a 100% ish ROI maybe for those specific good structure events it'd be your most profitable option even after expenses/wasted travel time. You'll have close to no control over actually realizing that equity though due to lack of sample size and you'll need a way bigger bankroll than you would need playing other formats.

The app stuff is so true. Those things are shady AF, and I wouldn't hop in unless I really trusted the agent.

Disagree with the notoriety stuff. It's a good way to make connections even if it isn't the best $/hr (and some people just like doing it).

Basically agree on live tourneys, but with an asterisk that if you're a top top player, it's the best way to get a lot of action.

He’s a high stakes player and I’m not so his opinion carries more weight.

Tip 3: really dependant on where you start. If an 18yo goes from NL5 to NL50 within a year or so, I don’t think this is a talent issue and just takes time. A more accurate tip would be if you haven’t moved up a couple of stakes within a year or so etc.... rather than 5/10. 1/2 and 2/5 online are pretty tough and to go from a newbie to 2/5 winner in a year is insanely impressive.

Tip 4: True live and true online maybe 4 years ago but solvers and high rake on most sites make it a damn difficult game to beat (talking PLO not PLO8).

He also forgot tip 7: Run like a god.

I thought the Flemish Cap is where the fish are. At least that's what I heard in The Perfect Storm. Good movie. Recommend it.

The solution is just go to a series to play cash games, and shot some of the high ROI lower variance Main event type stuff.

Obviously the advice is for online play as live players are just people running hot over a small sample for the most part. Even at like 2bb/100 at NLHE at 2/5 6tabling is $60/hr for online play whereas one has to find extremely soft games at above 5/10+ big bet games for $60/hour to be true live (and PLO games live are possibly the nut low in gambling in that one gets like 15/hands an hour and maybe 1 decision point for every 4 sessions). A glance at poker atlas or Bravo Live will show that these games no longer exist in open casino games outside of maybe Friday and Saturday.

Live poker is and will always be for the delusional. 2002-2007 has passed. If you play live poker for a living, I would suggest a career change. $40-70k a year living in a casino cannot be a good life psychological, emotionally or mentally. Whereas all the normal people will have the sense of relief and exaltation from having Friday and Saturday off, the live grinder literally has to be there otherwise there's literally no chance of a 100k+ year.

Tourneys are even worse for live play in an ROI of 50% (very generous) the average buyin has to be above $1500 for that to equal $60/hr if the average play time is 12 hours.

Live poker sucks and will only suck worse as online gets harder.

Agree but it's not so easy to beat 500nl on Stars/GG for 2bb/100. I could probably get someone to crush 2/5 live for 30$/hr in a month, while it'd probably take that long to get to 10nl for an online guy.


That being said - live should never be the end goal. If you play 2/5 live for a living, getting good enough to beat online should be a priority. But it's not that easy.

Tournaments are hugely profitable and if you are losing or experiencing extreme variance, you are doing it wrong. The fact is that there are huge edges in tournaments because they are so complicated and there are so many variables that change constantly. Players who who study and know how to beat tournaments have an enormous edge.

But you are very right about PLO and PLO8/NLO8. If you know what you are doing you can print money in these MTTs with little variance, PLO8 and NLO8 especially. A 100%+ roi is not uncommon for the better players, 50% is easily attainable even by regs who aren't that good.

The fact is that some people are better suited to cash play and make more money that way, and some people excel at the complexity of tournament play and make way more money doing that than cash. The point is to find a game/games and structures you enjoy and can beat and play them a lot.

Exactly. The online site I play only lets you convert player points to tournament tickets. The attainable ROI is extremely high. If it is a bounty style tournament, then all the better.

"In poker, money won is the only way to keep score"

So much for making +EV decisions then huh

Who is TwoSHAE and why does she matter?

In places like Black Chip, Clubt WPT yes. Only places for USA players to go try to win in the freerolls and Club WPT is a sub site. Poker Stars on the other hand has some very good play money players. Those guys are serious about their agenda. They are amazing, especially the higher stakes NL tournaments. I played one today they go over 3 hours.

Jesus dude add some fin paragraphs.