I was gonna post something but CMAR has it pretty much covered. You're not good OP and you think you're amazing. You're my favorite type of fish.

Yeah, I've never understood this attitude. It implies that unless there's money involved, you never care about winning.

So you're playing basketball in the park with some friends - You don't care about winning? You have some people over for board game night - You don't care about winning?

I sure never want to be on your team!

Unless it's a drunken home game (and even then!) I don't care if we're playing for pride, matchsticks or pennies, I'm coming.

winning >>>>>> money



I'm obviously not just going start randomly playing nano-stakes. It's not worth my time and I've already done that journey - There's nothing for me to learn there.

However, say a random site I haven't played on in years puts $20 in my account and I decide as a personal challenge that I'm going to take the week-end to see how much I can run it up. Yeah, that $20 is meaningless (well, free lunch, everyone likes a free lunch!) but that $20 is not just $20. If I don't take that $20 seriously, then I can never turn it into $200 or $2000 or a career in poker. That $20 doesn't just represent $20, that $20 is a means to an end. It's a tool. You're like a carpenter who doesn't take care of his tools because, "It's just a hammer".

So if I decide I'm doing it, you better believe the nano players on that site are going to have a bad time. Otherwise, why even bother? I could just watch TV or play Hearthstone all week-end.

When you say, "I don't care about $2NL" what you're really saying is:

I don't care about my goals.
I don't care about long term results.
I don't care about winning.
I don't care about succeeding.

All I care about is instant gratification.


Which means you're setting yourself up to fail as much as someone playing with three buy-ins. You're a doctor who doesn't care because he's only cutting into someone's arm when he what he really wants is to be a brain surgeon. You're a minor league ball player who doesn't hustle because he's saving it for the big leagues.

But what makes you think anyone's ever going to let you cut into somoene's head or call you up to The Show if you can't even excell at the basics?

Nano stakes are not about the money. They're about two things. They're about learning the game and they're about building bankroll so you can move up. Period. If you're playing nanos for the money, you might as well be playing soccer because you like riots.

If you can't find motivation in winning or succeeding for its own sake and in pursuit of your greater goals then I'm at a loss. You're never going to succeed at anything let alone poker.


If you're only playing poker for the money, then poker is a job. When poker becomes a job is when it's time to retire because you're at a big disadvantage against the players for whom it's still a calling.

So only play week-ends against fish and realize you're only ever going to be a casual player.

Or learn to beat regs.

Or quit the game entirely.

Those are your choices.

Lol op is a douche

Unfortunately @smokybacon you seem to just be approaching the game all wrong.
Now I have taken the time to read through the thread and my advice is simple.

Get back to basics and enjoy the game.

If you don't want to continue reading then fair enough but there are a couple of reasons that I see everyday in poker as to why people like yourself are loosing players.

1. You play for the money, not for the enjoyment. That's why you started. That's why you play. You will never reach your full potential if that is your motivation.

2. The way you talk. You talk like a player who has 'been around' and you describe players as bad and fish, when you are a loosing player yourself. It sounds like you need to show players around and in your games a lot more respect.

3. You play exclusively online. You learn so much more about real poker, not math based button clicking when you play live. It will improve your online game no end. You will see player types live that will help you read certain actions online.

4. You watch training videos, watch TV poker, basically do everything. This is a negative. You are trying to take in too much. You talk like an experienced player and you are not. You have all the lingo and all the stats but no solid foundations to your game.
You are learning by being told, and not learning by doing (which is proven to be the best way to learn).


Yes there are a lot of assumptions in this post but I haven't posted it to be derogatory to you or anyone else. I am trying to help by saying start again. Enjoy the game. Learn from your own mistakes.

Great post from CMAR except the bit about soccer football.

Why You Won't Make It In Poker

Can you beat NL10 at stars OP?

Grunching. Whatever you do, make sure as long as you're still a student this all stops. Immerse yourself in everything but and maybe once that's out the way you can pick this up again.

What do you mean when you say this? I have about 4 months left as a student.

The not taking frequent breaks part definitely applies to me. I don't take enough frequent breaks. I will play anywhere between 4-8 hours straight without food or drink and only going to the toilet in a pee bottle.

Regarding the other replies, I will reply to them soon. I am a bit busy right now.

.

CMAR killing it ITT.

OP, if you couldn't beat $3.50 husngs, you are trash at poker. Period. We all were (or are) at some point, but you need to stop with the excuses and accept that you are not very good. Check your ego. You come off very poorly here. 2p2 isn't here to coddle you.

For 99.99% of players, poker isn't a career. If you want to be part of that 0.01%, best of luck to you.

My advice to anyone wanting to play poker as anything other than a hobby is don't bother. Treat poker like you would chess or backgammon. Honestly play "play" money and apply and learn strategy with no risk.

Do you think I should give up and take these losses as experience and move onto something different in my life? There's only so many knocks I can take.

Even if I could become a winning player some time in the near future, the games are getting tougher and tougher and the future of online poker is uncertain. Factoring in study time, the hourly rates are quite poor unless you play midstakes.

If I continue with the game, given that self study hasn't worked for a year and a half, the only two things I can think of are:

a) get a coach
b) join a study group which actively helps each member of the group

I have heard people improve immensely from coaching, turning losers into winners, breakevens into winners. And I have heard pros say that having a group of friends or buddies to talk about poker helps your game improve immensely, which is what a study group is.

But I don't know how much they would help. A coach would cost a several hundred dollars which I could potentially pay for but I would like to be certain that it would work. I had a sit and go coach for a short while and it didn't improve my game at all. I know these things won't work miracles but could they improve my game immensely?

It's fairly self explanatory, but how many people do you think have become rich from playing poker? How many have even managed to support themselves financially playing poker?

Now how many people do you think play poker in general?
Every time there's one of those "best advice you ever got" threads, this should be the first reply.

It's almost impossible to improve at poker if you refuse to accept that you're not the next Phil Ivey.

I don't think I'm amazing. Like I said in my opening post, I think you would find it difficult to win money off me in the long run if we were both playing in the same 6max games. That's not saying that I'm an amazing player, far from it. But I believe we would both lose to rake against each other if we were playing in the same 6max game.

This is going to make me sound like I have a huge ego, but if you want to test that theory, I am happy to share my Pokerstars username with you via private message so we can play in the same 6max games.

You didn't lose £3100 to rake, broseph.

This is your problem right here.

I don't think I'm amazing. I am willing to accept my faults if I knew what my faults were (I have pointed out one fault - that I play for too long without breaks). This is why I asked someone if they thought coaching or a study group is the best option. I have been banging my head against a brick wall for a year and a half trying to improve on my own. I think it is time to get coaching/a study group for help from other winning players, or stop playing the game altogether. Would you agree or not?

Smokybacon, pm me your sn please. Chances are I might have you in my db.

I have counted up the rake I paid and yes I have. You need to be about a -11bb loser to be a loser before rake. I would have lost a lot quicker had I lost pre-rake.

Well, I know I can't think of any other ways someone could improve their game...

If you can "crush" 2NL and 5NL it shouldn't take you long to deposit $60 and move up to 10NL using a 30 buy in rule then.

Start a poker goals and challenge thread called "Proving 2+2 wrong" It will get tons of views I'm sure. I would say post any trouble hands you have during 2NL and 5NL in the relevant forum but if you can crush those stakes then you should have none of these.