There's been a proposal to wipe the forum whiteboard. If you want a say check in to the whiteboard discussion thread

The Tiny Bro Rises.

I'm enjoying the Brainpickings email list, so to whoever suggested that!

Perhaps this was the source of his admitted fantasy/fear of his wife "riding big dicked mesomorphs", as he put it.

You don't need to rationalize your life decisions to me

Sweet ty! 2 people I know of who live in Austin. Practically feels like home already

Prob me imo. Glad you like it.

Both are great. Beamer/Audi is great too. Gym bag is lonely.

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to bump a 4-y.o. OOT thread so I'll ask here.

Have you (anyone reading this) tried solving n-back puzzles for a decently long period, and if so, how big was its effect on your working memory?

Grunch - I can't imagine you can really improve your working memory much. But you can utilize it more efficiently, especially for specific tasks. For instance, I do not think memory champions really increase their working memory much if at all, its all about mastering specific techniques to excel at specific tasks.

When I played a lot of seven card stud, I found that through practice and techniques I could easily recall all the mucked upcards. However, I found it very difficult to *use* this data strategically.

I did a lot better when I memorized less and instead formed more general impressions.

So it looks as though delegating as many memorization tasks as possible to a custom HUD is a +EV solution even in the short term. What's holding me back from this is the fear of a possible ban or severe restriction of HUDs (as in ACR running the jackpot and SNG 2.0 games through a web-based interface), but I guess I shouldn't fear anything that hasn't happened everywhere yet.

These are fine for "normals" and OK for you to work in sometimes when you're not busy exercising, but multitabling online poker is a vastly superior exercise for working memory. You can use your HUD and not use it--keep up on your own and check the HUD to confirm your thoughts on players.

I used (my own) program that counted cards sometimes, where possible. Other times I would type the upcards into the chat box. Don't press enter.

Since this came up. A while back I dabbled with the idea of getting back into poker, however HEM / new HEM (they made a new version, to charge people again, prob fair enough) seemed broken on PartyPoker.

I really prefer to play with HUD.

Anyone know what sites I can use Trackers + HUDs on?

What is the best tracking software these days?

This may seem an odd question, but is bots a problem?

Except that it risks money if done in a rather unknown player pool (I haven't played nearly enough poker for ages) whereas video games are risk-free.

Do you play regular (non-fastforward) cash games at Party? If so, there's no legal way to have a HUD there because hand histories are anonymized ('Player 1', 'Player 2' etc. are written in the file instead of the nicknames). This applies only to regular cash games; fastforward and all kinds of tourneys / SNGs should still be supported by major tracking software brands - if HM3 is broken for those games, this inconvenience is only temporary.

I haven't used Hand2Note but it's got positive testimonials and its unique 'dynamic HUD' functionality (allowing to change the set of displayed stats depending on the actions in the current hand) can be used at a number of supported sites, namely, Party, 888, Microgaming, iPoker, WPN (Winning), but not Stars whose rules allow only the static 'positional HUD'. I've decided not to use it for a very specific reason - unlike PT4, it doesn't seem to store the prize pool size of an SNG.

Bots are surely going to be more of a problem in the coming years, however, I have no evidence that would allow me to convict any site of being too negligent in catching them, though botting forums do recommend some sites over others. Occasionally, bot rings have been exposed even at Stars, which has the reputation of having the most efficient security service among non-US sites.

I played Party back in the day, I "liked" their software.

I think fastfarward is stupid, no history is build, seems like a snooze fest, albeit a fast snooze fest.

I would play Stars if tracking work, or pretty much any skin. I don't think I will get back to playing super much, just want to play poker instead of Hearthstone so I can buy a sweet ass home gym and other stupid stuff.

How tough are the games these days?

FWIW i beat 400 NL for 8ptBB over 100K hands, this was back in 2007 or so, and with pretty solid table selection.

Oh, I thought you were playing regularly already. I mean multi-tabling even using and fully relying on a HUD is a more robust exercise than the video games. From there you can increase the challenge by peeking away from the HUD at times or something like that. Again, nothing wrong with the games as part of an overall effort.

The money risk is a feature as it perpetuates motivation--and I mean motivation in the recesses of your brain that regulate adaption and neuroplastic change. The main driver is *caring* and that can be hard to maintain for an N-back game. I mean, you can sit and psyche yourself up to care about an N-back game but I assume it's already built-in to care about playing poker well.

I'm not a cash game expert, but my educated guess is that, if the last time when you played poker seriously was in 2007, then I'm afraid you won't be profitable off the bat at today's NL100.

If you really want to pursue online poker these days, I recommend to learn a game format that few people have mastered yet. If you're OK with playing multi-hour sessions, then get started in MTTs, primarily non-Holdem ones and progressive knockouts - rumors are that they're yet quite profitable for those who study their strategy deep. Otherwise wait for Pokerstars Power Up to appear but mind that there will be no HUDs for that game, at least in the first few months of its existence.

PT works on stars and few other sites. And things have changed since 2007.

HUDs are still legal/allowed (at this time) at party cash anon tables but the HUD/tracker can't tell the difference between any old Player1 and any new Player1 at a new table or that sits down during a table session. HM2 automatically shows table session stats instead of lifetime stats so they can be more useful (as long as that PlayerX doesn't stand up and leave then get replaced by a new PlayerX taking over their session stats) and I am 99% sure HM3 behaves the same way.

HM1 likely doesn't work there anymore as it probably won't import the hands since the parser hasn't been updated in 5 or 6 years.

Thanks for the clarification, I forgot that you're a H&F reg

I should have indeed written 'way to have a full-fledged HUD' instead of just 'way to have a HUD'. Surely, a HUD with table session stats is possible but they're far less informative than all-time stats would be.

Also, the fact that Microgaming allows frequent screenname changes essentially reduces the scope of HUD stats to a single table session too. Moreover, in cash games, Microgaming only records those hands where Hero put money into the pot, which makes HUDs barely usable at all.

Furthermore, I've just realized that cookie meant HM2 when he was talking about 'the new HEM' - the testing of HM3 hasn't finished yet. I should have figured that out because, technically being a registered HM2 buyer, I've never got an email announcing any HM3 release, which means it has never happened.

yes, gotcha.

Regarding Microgaming: HM2/3 (and I think PT4) stopped importing cash game hands because the stats would be so skewed. So if you still want to track net won/loss results (which I think should be fairly accurate even with the new hand format), and have skewed action stats that could cause you to make bad decisions if using the HUD, is to use an older version of the software before we stopped importing those dumb new hands.

edit to add:

HM3 is in private beta and invites are only announced randomly via alerts on the HM2 Home tab of the software. There is still no ETA for an open public beta or official release.

Thanks for the explanations; I'll wait for PT5 to appear, though, assuming that its development hasn't been abandoned.

2007 was my best year, I still played in 2008, 2009 I was mostly playing golf before going back to school.

Just to make sure the young ones gets it 8ptBB = 16 BB /100 hands => bonkers win rate.

I was also up at 600, 1000, 2000 and 3000. I was stuck about a buy in at 5000 NL.

I played mostly 6max before converting to HU. HU was insanely soft for a while. From what I hear HU is 99% bumhunters now?

I would try that power up game for lols if it gets made. Also I like the idea of no literature and everyone being "new" to the game.

I have a solid job now, so I would not aspire to go back to being a poker pro, so it would be more of a "for fun/extra income for fun stuff" project.

I understand why learning a new game would make sense, but I don't think I have it in me to play anything other than Hold'em or a totally new version.

MTT would not be a good fit with long sessions. Maybe STT, since I never played them seriously, but AFAIK you need to play rather high buy in for a solid ROI. But the no table selection part is nice. Zoom/Fast forward is nice for that too, but I just think hate that you can't get to a table see a guy 7 BIs deep and try to get deep yourself to play some insane hands.