Of course it applies to poker. You need a certain amount of intelligence/ability to succeed at poker. Different players achieve different standards with similar effort. The same is true of almost all human activities. There is an example of this in the MTTSNG forum. One of the 180 experts decided to hothouse a fairly ordinary player. Said player has achieved an ROI of 3% after several months. However other players who have been trained for similar periods have achieved 10% ROIs and more with higher ABIs.

That's because the failures do not become famous and the ones with any sense give up and do things they're not hopeless at. Eddie the Eagle wasn't very good at ski jumping and he took that very seriously. The onus of proof for this laughable claim that we're all geniuses really lies with those who make the claim.

wat?

Eddie the Eagle didn't even care enough about ski jumping to slim down to a weight that would give him a chance to be good at it. How is this even close to taking it 'very seriously'?

Eddie the Eagle aside is there any reason why you have ignored every point I have raised ? It's as if you are not interested in the facts but just want to believe all this "we could all be geniuses if we tried" nonsense. I have come across quite a few poker players who have worked hard to become very good and who have failed to get very far. I can think of one right now who has spent the last six months being coached intensively who is about to give it up as a bad job because he's still only slightly better than break-even at low stakes and a loser higher up.

The reason is that all the other stuff you're trying to drag into this has no relevance for the one point you made that I am debating.

Your claim that there are a lot of people who can apply themselves to something 100% and yet only become 'slightly less incompetent' is what I'm debating - that's all I've been debating.

And you are making it abundantly clear that the reason you have not understood this yet, is because you're not even bothering to read my posts before furiously typing your replies to them based on what you suppose they say. I have never claimed 'we can all be geniuses if we tried' or even anything close to it.

All I'm pointing out is that while some might be too optimistic about what people can achieve just based on hard work, you are at least equally ridiculously pessimistic.

That has little relevance to the arguments I am putting which you are completely ignoring. It was just a qualitative statement. Some people are hopeless even after practising hard. They tend to finish last in groups learning whatever it is that is being learnt. You can substitute "not very good" for "hopeless" if you like. It doesn't matter.



No that's from the OP. Your lesser claim seems to be that everyone will become "very good" if they apply themselves. I don't think you can turn someone, who is say, hopeless at writing into a very good writer. They will just end up being not quite as bad.

Some will succeed some will not. That's neither optimistic nor pessimistic. The writers are dishonest to sell their books on the promise of us all becoming geniuses and the OP seems to be associating these spurious claims to his training drills.

This is a great post! Thx for contributing. I feel there's a whole way to go in improving my game. This post will be a stepping stone for my poker career.

pure gold, well done

wicked advice ty

Best OP I ve read so far on this forum

can someone share an excel like this? thx

Yes more info on cardunners EV; what s the best way to use that program please?

1. Buy it
2. Watch instructional videos pausing every 30 seconds
3. Get headache, say screw CREV
4. Try again 3 weeks later
5. Use every day
6. ?????
7. Profit

I am old person. I played Limit poker (Bellagio 15-30) in Vegas from 2001 to 2009. Never had a losing month. Once won 110 days (sessions in a row). I never did the kind of training the op suggests. It is very true that study and practice will undoubtedly improve your game. I will say, that I was coached by 2 of the most well known poker guru's of the time but that was not what made me successful at poker. Study and practice are important but the key to becoming a successful poker player is OJT. You will learn more about the game and yourself by playing than by practicing.

Poker is not a game like Golf nor is it a game like chess. The number one response that you get when you ask a question about how to play a particular poker hand is "It depends". The reason for that is that there are many variables to what goes into the correct way to play a poker hand. The only way to understand how to play a poker hand under varying conditions is to play a lot of actual poker hands.

Jim Brier tried to convey this with the structure of his mid limit holdem book. His primary method was to use many, many poker hands and discuss them. The book(s) "Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time" use this same style. These are good books but they miss the mark in that they do not cover the one real necessary concept you need to understand how to play a hand. That is they do not actually put YOU into the situation. To be fair there is no way to put you into an actual situation other than to do it yourself with your own money. Only then will the potential outcome have it's sobering effect. Only when it is your money that is on the line will you truly begin to understand what you have learned about the game and how to play correctly.

The statement "You had to be there to understand" is no more truer than it is in a poker situation. You can practice away from the table all you like and it will help but nothing will substitute for OJT in a real poker game or tournament.

Great post OP! maths is the weakest part of my game and going through a downswing now is probably the best time to stop playing and start doing these drills.

as to the guy above me, i assume you play live (never had a losing month) damn i wish i ran that good. I vs guys who play tons of volume and still suck and spew money everywhere and when you approach them about leaks that they may have they swipe you off and call you a donk. Sure playing more hands will get you into more spots and you will get better, but some people just arent smart enough and/or made money previously by playing a hand in a -ev way and making money of it just by pure run good in those spots and its enough for them to think this is the correct play.

Learning this stuff is essential imo, knowing a +ev spot from -ev will benefit long term and is why we play poker. I dont know if you play online or not but i could get 100k hands in pretty easily in a month and (assuming you only play live as your comment suggested) you prob wouldnt even get this many hands in, in a year.

fyi for someone to say that they havent had a losing month and then underestimate the importance of maths in poker is a bit wierd.

Marston, nice post, but you have to understand most of us kids are playing 15 tables at a time, so live play is not as good as study for learning spots. Likely if you can't put someone on a range from the live play then study is a waste. But study and play go hand in hand today, and lots of it is numbers of tables we are playing.

Nice OP.

Skimmed through the post and it's seems really good. Posting to come back later for a full read.

Could you explain this more? What do you exactly mean? The probabillity of some holdings in his calling range or his complete range on the flop?
How to work things out? I made a spreadsheet like this:

--------------[Estimate]----[Actual %]
[Flop xxx]
[%Preflop Range]
[%>>TopPair]---xx%--------[flopzilla%]
[% OESD/FD] ---xx%--------[flopzilla%]
[% of AIR]-------xx%--------[flopzilla%]

What do we exactly learn from this and how can we use this at the table.
(Sorry for acting dumb i just try to get to know a clear understanding of the reasoning behind it)


You mean to get an estimate of how many draws there are left in his range compared to his value hands to not keep betting and value-owning yourself?

Exelent post, thank you.

Hi, can someone reupload this documents? Thanks.

If it works in open office, just download open office, it's entirely free and works pretty well.

Great thread

Excellent, excellent post. Exactly what I've been wanting to know/do, but never knew where or how to start.

incredible thread. can't wait to start doing some of this on my own. pretty inspiring that you work so hard.

I am interested in getting those OpenOffice spreadsheets but they were hosted on megaupload. Does anyone have a copy of them? Thx.