If you can't grind, you'll never make money long-term. Imo you should stop viewing poker as a money-making endeavor; it's quite clear that you don't have the mindset for it.

Smokybacon this thread proves why you are a loosing player.

You have replied to everyone that has ripped into you but not to the genuine advice that some people have tried to give.

You're ego is too big and you think you are better than you are. You don't listen to helpful advice but I bet you have read this. This is your problem.

I've read everything. Which pieces of advice would you like me to reply to? Sorry, I've just overlooked replying to it.

lololol u smell like a troll, but if u are genuinely serious about this, you are actually a delusional fish that thinks your better than you are. ive been there myself before, i think everyone has at one point in theyre poker 'career'

I've never thought of poker as easy money which is why I've studied very hard ever since I started the game. I've spent a lot of my spare time playing and studying.

What do you want me to view it as? I have viewed it as a method of making money which is enjoyable. I have enjoyed learning, studying and playing but I haven't enjoyed the losing part.

I don't want to be one of those people who spends 10-15 years of their life on this game and barely makes any money, or makes as much money as they would do working a low paid job. The aim for me was to enjoy it AND make a good amount of money. After 1 and a half years of plenty of studying and playing, and evaluating how tough the games are in the current climate and how much tougher they could become, I don't think it's worth continuing. I think there are better things to pursue.

I need to realistic here. There might be people on this forum who deeply love this game and will play it for countless hours for no/little monetary gain, but I'm not one of them. That doesn't mean to say I haven't enjoyed it, but I need to be making money AS WELL AS enjoying it, or else I see no point continuing. It could be a year or two before I ever make back the losses (yes I know I shouldn't think of it in terms of making back losses). If I have a real job, I can make that money in a couple of months.

I'm still young. I don't think it's the end of the world, is it?

edit: I'd like to ask what is your hourly on poker and how long have you taken to get there?

I'm not a troll.

I'm thinking realistically here. Poker just doesn't have the money making potential that other things have. And I don't enjoy playing simply for the game, I enjoy winning. In fact, I've always been like that with everything in my life. I don't like things I'm bad at, or that I'm bad at after trying very hard to improve.

Even if I could become a winning player, the hourly rates are pretty poor compared to other things I can think of, unless you're playing midstakes or higher. Like I say, it could be 2 or 3 years before I make back my losses, if I do ever make them back. Bearing in mind I've studied very hard over the past year and a half, what are the chances I can make a good amount of money from this game? Probably very low. Why not just give up and focus on easier, less stressful ways of making money? Like I said in my first post, poker does weird things to me. It makes me not wash properly, not eat properly, not socialise or exercise, and this is usually whether I'm winning or losing (though more when I'm losing). I can't be the only one who has experienced this.


In hindsight, I should have given up in September/October. I was down a bit under £2000 then. I had an absolutely awful run on Omaha in December (that game has a ton of variance and yes I was using proper BRM - 40 buyins) which I lost about £850 on.

ops posts seem genuine and reasonable to me, and makes valid points and he is surely not the only one who has been confronted with these issues.

From what I understand though, 50NL is beatable just playing solid ABC, so maybe you just lack discipline and application. how many hands total do you think you have played overall? Study is only half the equation, nothing beats raw experience.

Hey ... I read maybe the first few posts and skimmed a while, so maybe I'm way off base if something happened earlier, but ... :


Why not just play those small stakes for fun? Keep working on it. The forums here are really good. Keep working, keep posting in the strategy forum .... decent chance your winrate improves at least a little.

EDIT: I mean, of course, do not quit your job or anything.

Of my experience at 50NL, there were many grinders and people were generally playing very good poker. When people are defending against cbets well, against 3bets well, defending their blinds well and playing tight solid ranges, it is very difficult to win money.

I'm interested as to what you did as study because if you aren't thick and invest any decent amount of time in learning the game you should be beating at the very least 25nl. I can only conclude that your study is effectively not very effective or you never spent the time finding out what you should be learning about.

Posts like this make me think you don't really understand poker that well because people have huge leaks at 50nl, aren't defending well against most of these things (just aren't spewing like they are at 5nl) and their ranges are pretty bad in a lot of spots. It seems most of the things you have learnt about are application based for beating low limits when in reality you want to learn theory.

I've seen worse at live tables. Honestly if you play to learn strategy (like I did cause I didn't have any money) you can learn pot odds, learn how to calculate outs, put others on ranges etc....its the same game.

Seems like there is a very easy answer to your question.

As you are not getting what you want from it, then yes, it is time to quit.

Listen. If you just play poker for money, and not the enjoyment, you will NEVER be a winning player over a long period.

I love 2+2 but it is mostly rubbish responses you get just abusing you for being bothered in the first place.

You have to pick out the best responses which contain genuine advice and use it.

The advice you listen to and then use is totally up to you and will define you as a poker player (even a person)!

You get defensive to the abuse, describe others as fish when you have no idea about who they are or what they play!

My original post is #30 and read it if you like, but you sound like a standard player who took poker up as a way to make money and doesn't realize what it really takes to be a winning player at stakes that make a financial difference in your life.

Re read this entire thread with a different attitude towards it. You have invested a lot of time in it so it would be a waste not to. Print out all the replies. Then Highlight the genuine advice. Take it. See what happens.

@op

I'd advise you to buy, read and study "The Mental Game of Poker" by Jared Tendler.

All your posts (even the thread title) display what he calls 'entitlement tilt' - as in

Thread title = Invested so much emotionally in poker
I'm too good to play NL2/NL5
I ought to win because I study, play 8 tables and pee in a bottle
Poker feels like it destroys my mental health too

You need to change your mental attitude, drop down in stakes and play fewer tables.
There's plenty of top advice in this thread but if you're not prepared to listen to it and take the appropriate corrective actions - then you should walk away and never look back.

Well lots of advice here. If I felt as bad about my game as you post (IDK if you are for real or not), then I would quit for a while at least. Later after days, weeks, or months if I really missed it, then I would go back and play part time and see what happens. You certainly don't seem to have much positive poker time right now (If you are sincere) so give it a rest and maybe recover some confidence!

You keep insisting that you arent splashing around game types and are practicing some kind of BRM. But you arent. Dedicating yourself to HUSNGS for 2-3 months is not a disciplined approach to learning a particular game type. Neither is playing for a week and then withdrawing after your bankroll swings up and down 5 buyins. Most people pick a game type, and then stick with that game type, forever. Thats all they really play. They might enjoy trying out some PLO or some HU action, but they are NLHE grinders for life. You should stick to whichever game type you have the most experience in and are profitable in. We're talking something you have put at least 1 year of time in. Unless you are planning some major overhaul and want to convert to a new game type exclusively, just stick to what you know.

This is simple table selection. Trust me, there is always 1 fish out there playing every limit up to like NL5000. Ignore the grinders, find the fish. Look for the guy not reloading. Look for the guy limping UTG. Look for the guy limping the BTN. Look for the guy minraising preflop, or min3betting. Look for the guy who just showed down K5o somehow. Look for the guy who flat preflop with QQ. Look for the guy just calling every raise preflop and then c/f on the flop. I dont care if there are 7 pro's sitting with him all 1000BB's deep. Take a seat and target him. Thats all you need to do right now, especially at NL50.

OP first says, and I semi-quote, "I started playign poker about a year and a half ago..."

In a follow up post OP says, and I semi-quote, "How dare you suggest I haven't taken the game seriously.. I've taken the game seriously from a year and a half ago!"

So OP, as soon as you started to play poker, you took it seriously, you didnt play for fun, you played to MAKE MONEY eh? A year and a half? Is this a troll post?

Most people play poker and start being winning players after playing the game 5+ years... I scoff at you claiming to "stick to HU play for several months" - OP this is laughable... people usually master a format and play one format for YEARS not months.

You are a deluded degenerate.

To be fair, he could just be a guy with slightly unrealistic expectations.

It is sometimes hard to hear unpleasant news.

OP, you asked how much hourly. About $50 an hour on Stars including rb, pre bf. Sample size live is lol, but 45 to 60 an hour in the local live game. I've run way better than that, but I think that number is what a full time player could make. Sadly you'd need a 40k or 50k br to play that game. How long to do this? It will take a while, and it happens as a byproduct of getting better at poker. Rushing probably hurts.

You cited poker after dark and WPT as "study material" and you just joined 2p2. Instead of posting here about hands and advice, most of your first posts are about your entitlement issues. There is no way you've "studied very hard".

View it as entertainment, a game you play for fun that one day with enough work you might make a few bucks at.

Poker is not your job.

No, of course not. If you'd like, you can just write it off as an interesting experience that ultimately isn't for you and you can move on from the game or reevaluate your stance on it. How many other hobbies do you pursue as moneymaking endeavors? If you do things like: -play sports -play videogames -collect something -do some sort of craft, etc. you don't view these as moneymakers. You do them because you enjoy them and they interest you. Why can't you approach poker the same way?

Unfortunately due to uni and my laziness, grinding has taken a back-seat in my life atm. That said, I do make more than minwage playing At some points (back when I actually worked at the game and got far better volume than I do now) my hourly has even been sort of decent. I've been playing for a number of years, though...probably 4 or 5, now.

Hehe , i have just read your post because i have a similar thread. I got some good answer from CryMeARiver , Duncelanas, etc... ( sorry for other "contributors") : http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...-view-1411498/

On first time i saw your topic and told me "woot another post just like mine", you want honest response etc... nice start and too bad for other Poo-baah who will have to repeat same things again .

But , you ve got answers , and it seems you re too "cocky" to accept it and my personnal raison of your fail , because -5k is obv a fail (my fail is -7k in 7 years...) , is your ego.

Beat low stake first, you are not Durrrr (you should already know it) ....

My poor 2c.

I'm starting to think maybe I do just lack the discipline. Like for example, I need to learn how to quit the game if I'm feeling tired or hungry. Or if the games are bad and they're just full of regs I won't win money off, I need to learn how to quit (although it's disappointing to set time aside to play and find that the games are bad).

Hands overall, over 200k hands.

I've watched numerous training videos, read articles, actually played a lot, read 2+2 and other forums extensively. I don't know what you want to know exactly, but I have been studying extensively.

I played 50NL Rush poker over the weekend and earlier this week. People were defending against my cbets well and I wasn't making a profit stealing blinds either because people were defending those well. Against 3bets, they defended a bit worse but overall it was still difficult to make a profit there.

There were a couple of 3bet pots against reg type players where both boards came low cards and ran out low cards. They were both similar positions (MP vs CO, UTG vs MP). One board I got called by middle pair when I triple barrelled. Another board, I triple barrelled effectively, he timebanked and eventually folded on the river. I assume they both used HUDs (I had a similar number of hands on each) and saw I was 3betting about 8% which includes a mixture of premium hands and bluffs. How can I ever know if one of them will fold and one will call? I feel like players are calling with close to optimal frequencies. Obviously the fish aren't, but the games are full of regs with very little in the way of fish. The point I'm making is that it feels like it's difficult to exploit anyone beyond 10/25NL other than the odd fish here and there.

Yes I have noticed there is some good genuine advice and some obvious abuse and bitter posts. Thank you for the advice.

I might get that book. How useful is it and what's the main points that it goes into?

I have most experience in NLHE and Omaha 6max so I will stick to that, if I decide to continue with the game.

I agree there is one fish at every limit out there, but just 1 fish isn't enough. Even 5 or 10 fish isn't enough. You need a lot of fish AND for them to be big losers. To just have a -4/-5bb fish isn't enough, because all they do is lose to rake in the long run. Also there might be a fish, but can you get on their table? Will the fish have left once you are first in the waiting list?

I doubt most players take 5+ years to become winning players. Most people around forums and I see and hear of took anywhere from a few months to a year to be a winning player.

Perhaps I do have some unrealistic expectations.

$50 sounds good but do I want to be making that sort of money my entire life, grinding in front of a computer 8 hours a day, a game that's full of stress and quite lonely at the best of times? Your figure was pre-bf when games were easier and I assume you're a good player too.

Most people who make a large amount of money from poker are either

a) sponsored
b) run like god when it matters
c) they're super super talented, with a strong mental game and deep love for the game

Do you think I should aim to get one of those Full Tilt sponsorships? It could give me an incentive to play better and aim for something.

I think you should aim for a Nike endorsement as well, then if one doesn't pan out, you've got all the bases covered. Heck, LeBron got a 90 million dollar Nike contract a month before being drafted into the NBA. You tall?

I talked about the Full Tilt sponsorship because it looks like a good thing to aim for and could give me the incentive to play better. We need aims and goals, don't we? I won't go into the details of the sponsorship because you can find them on the Full Tilt site.

I highlighted it because someone said I might just lack discipline. This aim/goal could give me discipline.

It was just a thought.