Hey Guys,

Trying to make a second run at taking poker seriously and generating some additional income.

I've read a few books in the past but would be looking for advice on great reads as well as to what is the best method to work my way up.

A bit about me, i played recreationally for about 3 years. Was ok at it but never made much. I then decided to read some books, wath videos and get better at it but i always got frustrated playing low stakes so id gamble my entire bankroll at. Higher stakes and eventually loose it all. I guess i needed the excitement of higher stakes !

Im looking for advice on how to ho about building a bankroll and working my way up through stakes.

Thanks, any help is appreciated.

self control and patient , and i think you will do great
don't gamble , play an ammount that if you loose it , it won't affect you

Self control and patience

You're so right! I was actually thinking of reading The Mental Game of Poker to help me out with that a little.

Honestly when you already once gambled off your roll at higher stakes there is very little chance that you have the patience that it takes to grind it out.
No offense just take it as additional motivation

Its 90% all patience and tiltcontrol to keep the cool in longer sessions to think clearly and also lifestyle eating well doing sports.
The rest is ambition and hard work imo.

Here's how you can get this book you speak of free of charge, it's the audiobook version though.

Anyway I'm not a pro but in my opinion inexperienced as it may be I think discipline is very important as well as being able to be honest with yourself and acknowledge your mistakes and not allow oneself to play bad poker. I sometimes notice that I slip into autopilote or even tilt mode and I make some spewy mistakes or call a 4bet with some garbage hand just because I'm bored or whatever.. don't do that

BRM BRM BRM, cant stress that enough.

Be prepared to lose. Seriously. The rake is no joke and is equivalent to around a -10bb/100 blow to your winrate. This means you can be significantly better than your opposition and still lose. Even micro games are tougher now post black friday so to actually beat these more experienced fish and the ridiculous rake you'll need an overall pre-rake winrate of +15bb/100 or more. Since anything over +7bb/100 is considered "crushing the game," please try to really grasp how much of a challenge this will be.

Also, even if after the rake you're netting a +5bb/100 winrate, keep in mind that at 5NL that's roughly 25 cents an hour tops and at 10NL it's 50 cents an hour tops. Understand that you will need to devote ALOT of time, even if you're a big winner, to actually move up in stakes. It's no joke. Most people think they can just coast through it quickly and that's simply not the case.

Chances are you will lose, and even if you don't it will take potentially thousands of hours to move up to meaningful money even with a sick winrate. I hope this helps you understand what you're actually in for. If you don't have the patience to do this, I suggest you save your money and just find a local home cash game or something.

Great point about rake, I was told to move through micros as quickly as possible for this very reason.

You can multitable 4-6 tables easily, and at NL2-10, its not really about our hourly, is it ? Its about getting a solid grip on the game.

you just made me feel so good about my "positive but far from spectacular" green line. thanks :-)

oh yeah, you should have mentioned rakeback in the same paragraph.

OP: RAKEBACK. f*ck stars and tilt, if you're playing low stakes go on one of the other sites and get yourself a RB deal

GL

Wow !!! Thanks guys !! I seriously love the feedback im getting.

@rebuild : no offense taken really. If i cant take hard but fair criticism then i shouldnt even be here.

@chrisgil : do you have any advice? Should i start with a bigger bankroll to bypass micros? I tought itd be the best place to work on my game and freshen up on some things. Im commited to this now so its really about finding the best way to go about it. How much of a bankroll should i start with and at what stakes does it get better?

@hainesy_2kt : what sites offer te best deals? Never really signed up for rakeback deals but its definitely worth it if it enhances my win rate.

This is what i needed, some honest to good advice about making this work.

Well I had my first real poker session and it was quite good. Came out with 4 times buy-in which I know is nothing at micros but still. I came out a winner. Did stack someone with a flush draw though so I got lucky in one spot and got unlucky in another but happy about it overall. Didn't loose my cool much.

Also started reading the Mental Game of Poker and really surprised how even the first 20 pages or so helped me!!!! I think the key thing I learned was that playing your a-game all the time isn't realistic. Its the bell curve of your playing capacity that has to shift. What he calls the inchworm model. Anyways, it really helped me.

Online game in 2013 is pretty seriously difficult right now. You're gonna have to work your ass off because mostly everyone knows at least a little bit of basic strategy by now. You'll have to seriously work to truly understand the game.

I get what you're saying I really do but tell me something I can use. Work your ass off? Alright. How? What? When?

Where will putting my hours be the most beneficial? Reading books? Reviewing hand history? Learning more about opponents at your stake?

I guess all of the above. What i'd really like is advice on things I can do. Right now everyone is just pumping me up even more to face reality of how difficult its gonna be. So lets cross that bridge. Message understood. Now what?

books, forums, hem analysis, and playing lots of volume. nuttin else to it, except maybe a coaching site.

go check out the rakeback forum here in 2p2, all the reps hang out there and will have offers for you. rooms like carbon, cake, black chip etc. from what i can remember all have rakeback deals available which dump anywhere between 20 and 50% of the rake you paid back into your account every month. apart from having nice software and more games running, stars, tilt and party give away nothing to the lower stakes players.

Just play a lot and post hands and try not to tilt. Once you build a roll get the books/videosites/coaching etc from it.

Basically have to live, breathe, think, and surround yourself with poker. You need to be analyzing your game all day everyday.

Not only that, but with the difficulty and ability of players these days sometimes you are going to need some raw talent. The skill of mid/high stakes players today is immense. Honestly, a lot of people don't have the mental ability to succeed.

That being said, I believe that it is definitely possible to beat micros with enough work and dedication. Even with all the hours of practice though you will eventually hit a wall you can't pass due to your mental ability. I'm not judging you by your intelligence but merely pointing out the fact that the greatest players not only have devoted their lives to the game but possess immense intellectual understanding and mental ability to play it at a whole different level. Sadly, we are not all gifted to be great players.

Only you know how much potential you have.

Just a few notes that other people have not mentioned yet that I have found useful.

Good BRM and patience should be basic and I won't touch on it, but also I would emphasise focusing on strategy more once you have accomplished and understand variance/ do not tilt. Doesn't matter if you exercise extreme BRM and do like 100BI's for cash game, if you are a losing player, you are a losing player and no amount of 'safe' bank roll will help.

It's good that you have read books, but also realise that your strategy must be adapted to fit with your level of opponents. What I mean is the most optimal strategy to play in 200nl will probably not be the most optimal strategy in 25nl.

Find strategies that fit you and also are optimal for your level. If you are switching or moving between stakes you should understand that you should be thinking about improving/ changing your strategy accordingly.

For the most part in micros when you start, value bet thin but be tight when facing agression. Don't focus too much about balancing and thinking about higher theory. I can't stress this enough, balance is highly over-rated at the micros and even the solid regs won't adjust fast enough or exploit you well enough. Most regs who adjust fast and play very well usually move up quick anyway. So until you break the micros focus on simple basics.

TL;DR balance over-rated. Dont level yourself at micros.

I really really liked your comment. In reality the weakest part of my game isnt 3-betting range, or balancing or position play or anything of the sort its by and far my mental game and thats where i have the most work cut out for me. Thats where i stand to gain the most currently. Understanding variance and not being affected by it.

Reading ur comment im kinda surprised you said to value bet thin. Any reason for that? People donk with much less than the nuts and you could value bet strong and still get called 2 streets. Just wondering why you said that.

^I'm not sure but I think he meant to valuebet thin as in bet with marginal hands. I myself use that as a general rule; to rather valuebet thin than make questionable calls beacause I find that people in the micros are generally more call happy and passive than they like to bet and be aggressive so I give their aggressive lines more respect and tighten up in that regard.

Rakeback will be a huge part of beating the game for sure. Not trying to promote or anything, but check out America's Cardroom, they give you 27% rakeback. That is pretty significant at micro/low stakes

I would still start in the micros regardless of the insane rake because it's by far the cheapest way to master the game. Read books specifically on small stakes NL hold em. There's a few by Ed Miller and Skalansky that you can probably buy cheap online or just pirate. I'd highly recommend "Small Stakes No-Limit Hold 'Em" by Ed Miller and a book or three on the mathematics behind the game.

I think the most important two things to look for when picking a site are rakeback and soft tables with high % to the flop. I'd sift through every site offering 35% rakeback and see if there's any out there with a good number of tables with 40%+ to the flop. Anything less and it will be very tough to beat the rake, even with rakeback. Rakeback should cut that -10bb/100 hit to around -6.5bb/100. Tables with 40%+ to the flop will have highly exploitable players where you can attain what would normally be an impossible winrate. Good table selection whenever you play is absolutely paramount. Finding the fish is easily the best way to assure you destroy the game and move up at a reasonable pace.

I play on Bovada. They have no rakeback, which is a bummer, but they have other easily overlooked perks.

• Lots of tables with abnormally high %/flop. 50% is normal and even 65% is not abnormal. I've even seen a few 200NL games with 45%+ to the flop.
• Anonymous tables, which encourages frankly ******ed play due to the fact that people can just leave and never be hassled about it after spewing.
• Limit of 4 tables, which discourages solid mass grinders from registering, making games much softer.
• Monthly promotions offering cash back for playing. Not as good as 35% rakeback, but it does make a difference at the micros regardless.
• HUDs don't work. This may sound bad, but remember that you can't be tracked either. Also, HUDs can get you into alot of trouble against solid tricky players IMO, but you don't really need a HUD to figure out if someone is an 83/5 passive whale.
• Lack of HUDs seems to correlate to much more straightforward 3 bet patterns in the micros here. Very few players 3 bet light or to defend, and I've never seen a 4-bet bluff from anyone with more than 40bb, save the occasional monkey on tilt who does it with T6o.

There may be better sites with rakeback and lots of juicy tables though, so definitely look around and don't hesitate to withdraw from your current site if you find somewhere better to play. Avoid sites where most micro tables have solid players, meaning you'll see anywhere from 10%-25% players to the flop regularly. These games are simply too difficult to beat when being hit by a 5% rake. Check your site's rake table to determine when rake starts dropping off.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions about focusing on your mental game. I used to be a tiltmonkey spazz who could drop an entire roll at 400NL cause my AA got cracked for $4. Now i can drop 3 BI in three seconds with boats and couldn't care less.

Had another incredible session which is really amazing given the fact that i've misplayed sooo many of my good hands. I don't think I make nearly as much as I should when I hit and let people outdraw me. But most of all I noticed that I don't put enough attention to my game. Its a sort of you get what you put in sort of thing. I tend to be distracted by multitaskinig which takes a lot of thought away from the table. But i've doubled my small bankroll at this point so all i can do is accept that my game has leaks that need to be improved upon.

I also found that my tilt factor is highest when I just start playing so i'm giving myself a routine before my sessions to get my juices flowing. I don't want to spew 3 buyins because i'm not warmed up enough.

Aside from my game I also spent quite a bit of time looking for rakeback deals and to be honest i'm soooo used to playing on stars/fulltilt that I found it annoying to start looking for new sites and hooking up a rakeback deal. I know I have to do it and right now i''m looking at carbon poker and maybe party poker or something we'll see. I'm also based in Canada so some sites are unavailable to me.

Thats it that's all for now.

I used to start drooling at the next rung on the ladder, just waiting for my chance to take a shot at it. The problem was, I never waited quite long enough to take my shot and always ended up taking it early. Wouldn't have been a problem if I had run well at the time and was able to keep the BR going, however; poker doesn't like to reward those that jump early and don't have patience. At least not this one.

I've been lucky over time. I haven't had to keep depositing over and over to start my education. I'm by no means a pro, but haven't taken poker as serious as I have this last round. I am sticking to a deep bankroll. I find that it's allowing me to explore my play style instead of having the feeling of being forced into playing like a complete NIT.

What my experience has taught me is to stick to my BR management. Nothing is as nerve racking as knowing your only half-rolled for a stake. As I hadn't played since Black Friday, and had a bit of an accident, this round I was only able to give myself 20 bucks to play around with. I've built myself a nice BR for my stake level, but got a ways to go before I am rolled for the next level.

The best advice that anyone can give you is to build your roll for the next level before taking a shot. Give yourself a stop gap and stick to it. If you fall below that then drop back down. Sometimes there is growing pains. One way to counter that when you raise up, is if you multi-table at all, to mix in the next level. However, wait until your roll is ready for it.

Then the other side of the coin. Spend time off the tables as well. I feel like there are two keys to poker. Experience that you only get from playing, and the knowledge of how to make good poker decisions that you get from working away from the tables. If you really enjoy the game, then you'll enjoy both sides of it. Took me a long time to figure that out and wish I would have done it more back when I first started out. Oh well, better late than never!

Not happy with my level of play these past two days. Had two long sessions that pretty much made me break even since I last posted here. The swings really affected my level of focus so i'm going to take some time to recoup and get my mental energy and focus back because otherwise i'm pretty much toast. Its weird though because all i've lost since I last posted here was 2 buy-ins and its affected my play l!!! I mean does it really have to impact me after all?? So I still have double my starting bankroll and am looking to double it once more with a little patience and dedication.

I'm also doing a lot of the exercises in the Mental Game of Poker book. They<ve helped me shed some light on some things but i'm not really sure the lessons have fully sinked in yet. Still I think its a great book that can improve anyone's game.

If you want you could start a challange/goal thread to motivate you and help you along the way in the goals and challanges part of the forum. It seems to me that could fit you and people will be able to help you as you progress etc.