This post will summarize my conclusions after having played a boat load of NL poker the past two months.
1. I always felt skilled poker players should be able to make 100k/year. I still believe that, but frankly I'm just getting skilled enough to do so, but not quite there yet. For example, I didn't get any special rake back when I played, and this certainly hurt my results. Further, I have never gotten set up on pokertracker, etc., I am an idiot when it comes to these matters. Tricky plays aren't adding much if anything to my bottom line, good solid poker is winning the money vs. really bad players.
2. Live poker is very, very easy to win, but agonizingly slow to play. One table. 30 hands per hour. Terrible players. You have to tip the dealer an extra dollar per pot. Anyone who is decent wins, but you just don't get many hands. I think the key is to go up to 5/10, 10/20 games on weekend nights vs. the really bad players if you want to make big money. Curiously, I didn't get rakeback set up on online, but was very good at it live. I played only in places with big freerolls if you got in some good hours, basically meaning I was playing rake free.
3. Online poker has been more profitable per hour, but this is due to the 3-4 tables played at once. All the games seem to be pretty fair, the cheating I do see at least 1 per day is a guy disconnecting when put allin, thereby defaulting into a partial allin gift/cheat for him. The players are ALOT better online.
4. I made almost all my money with big hands and easy to play hands. AK, Big pairs, and flopped sets with smaller pairs. I got much better at stealing pots no one wanted. I probably bet into smaller pots with nothing WAY more than you would believe.
5. I had little to no luck ever trying power moves stealing larger pots. Whevener If I fired a big bluff into the turn and was called, I was better off taking the loss than firing another barrel into the river.
6. Calling raisers with garbage is very overrated. Fold kq offsuit, 6-8 suited, etc to raises unless playing with big stacks AND vs. a bad player.
7. Bad players bet proportional to the value of their hands. Avoid this. Also, the literature emphasizes "don't give up free cards/be aggressive!" but I found many hands were better to just check/call (AK for example in a K rag rag flp after having your post flop bet called).
8. Read read read........and talk to other players about how to play key hands.
Best of luck to all in their future poker endeavors........
1. I always felt skilled poker players should be able to make 100k/year. I still believe that, but frankly I'm just getting skilled enough to do so, but not quite there yet. For example, I didn't get any special rake back when I played, and this certainly hurt my results. Further, I have never gotten set up on pokertracker, etc., I am an idiot when it comes to these matters. Tricky plays aren't adding much if anything to my bottom line, good solid poker is winning the money vs. really bad players.
2. Live poker is very, very easy to win, but agonizingly slow to play. One table. 30 hands per hour. Terrible players. You have to tip the dealer an extra dollar per pot. Anyone who is decent wins, but you just don't get many hands. I think the key is to go up to 5/10, 10/20 games on weekend nights vs. the really bad players if you want to make big money. Curiously, I didn't get rakeback set up on online, but was very good at it live. I played only in places with big freerolls if you got in some good hours, basically meaning I was playing rake free.
3. Online poker has been more profitable per hour, but this is due to the 3-4 tables played at once. All the games seem to be pretty fair, the cheating I do see at least 1 per day is a guy disconnecting when put allin, thereby defaulting into a partial allin gift/cheat for him. The players are ALOT better online.
4. I made almost all my money with big hands and easy to play hands. AK, Big pairs, and flopped sets with smaller pairs. I got much better at stealing pots no one wanted. I probably bet into smaller pots with nothing WAY more than you would believe.
5. I had little to no luck ever trying power moves stealing larger pots. Whevener If I fired a big bluff into the turn and was called, I was better off taking the loss than firing another barrel into the river.
6. Calling raisers with garbage is very overrated. Fold kq offsuit, 6-8 suited, etc to raises unless playing with big stacks AND vs. a bad player.
7. Bad players bet proportional to the value of their hands. Avoid this. Also, the literature emphasizes "don't give up free cards/be aggressive!" but I found many hands were better to just check/call (AK for example in a K rag rag flp after having your post flop bet called).
8. Read read read........and talk to other players about how to play key hands.
Best of luck to all in their future poker endeavors........
