Poker players

[DD11]

I have Been thinking seriously in getting into playing poker and was just curious if any other APs do so.
Like everybody else I have played with friends in a kitchen having drinks but speaking to a few friends/acquainteces about how they make supplemental income from thier full time jobs (30-50k) a year it's has me considering to start slowly getting into it. Do any other serious APs play poker? Is it a viable supplement to your income or perhaps just your bankroll? Curious to hear your feed back

[Jabberwocky]

I have Been thinking seriously in getting into playing poker and was just curious if any other APs do so.
Like everybody else I have played with friends in a kitchen having drinks but speaking to a few friends/acquainteces about how they make supplemental income from thier full time jobs (30-50k) a year it's has me considering to start slowly getting into it. Do any other serious APs play poker? Is it a viable supplement to your income or perhaps just your bankroll? Curious to hear your feed back

I've been playing NLH and PLO cash games for a few years. As a full-timer, I make more there than at Blackjack.

[pilotzone]

Your about 10 years too late! Poker was easy as plucking chickens back 10 years ago. Internet play was at light speed compared to playing in a casino. Internet was about 20x faster, as in you could play about 10 tables, and each table was twice as fast as the casino live games. So, do the math, even at $20 per/hr per table you would be making $200 per hr. Now the skill levels of other players is so high online, that and robots playing, leaves you little chance of making money online. The live casino games have a few soft spots, but not as many as previous years. Some casinos are over raking the tables which in turn makes your life more difficult trying to earn money. The one big plus, is if your good, you will not be barred. Pick your tables carefully, and you can make money- if you play very well!


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[Meistro123]

Yes, I play a ton of poker. It is a great game with a very high skill cap and a lot of fun to play. In order to succeed you need patience, discipline, observational skills, logical analysis and deduction, an understanding of probability and psychology and much more. You should start by creating a poker business plan. So you want to start at a pretty small level, even if you have the bankroll to play much higher. You need both the bankroll AND a winning sample at your present level to advance to the next level. So a good place to start would be $10 to $25 games. You can even start lower if you don't have the bankroll but assuming you have a job or other forms of income this is a good starting point. Your main goal initially isn't really to make money but to increase your skill level. So you need to put in the hours, play, and work on your game. Game selection, starting hand selection, post flop play, observing, making notes and adapting to your opponents, lifestyle (diet and exercise), post session hand review.... there is a lot you need to work on. Then once you have a 20k sample that shows you are beating the $10 games you can start taking shots at the $25 games when the game looks good. And once you beat the $25 games over a 20k sample you can hit up the $50 games, assuming you have the $1000 bankroll. And so on and so forth. But you want to be systematic about it and you want to constantly be tweaking and improving your game. You have to learn to control your game, to acknowledge your emotions but let your decisions be dictated by the pure application of poker logic. Probably you should focus on one type of poker too, because if you have practice with similar decisions day in and day out, and review them, chances are you can start making better and better decisions. Better to focus on one game and one type than to try to be a jack of all trades.

Also 500 bb daily stop-loss is recommended. And poker makes a better part time job than full time career. Poker and AP are quite synergetic also. You can play the game that has the highest hourly rate or is the most attractive gamble, and while you are waiting to get on the poker game you can play blackjack. At least poker you can grind 15 hour sessions and they won't bother you. They might even give you some comps!

[pilotzone]

Meistro- I thought you are retired. I made a post in the forum about side counting, and agreeing with you that it was mostly useless. Commented someone might have a lower IQ, not you! It got censored and taken off, then the forum was closed!


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[tomf23]

I've played for a living for over a decade. Originally it was mostly online these days mostly live.

After a long blackjack hiatus I'm trying to get back into counting mainly as a profitable way to fill my downtime in Vegas during dead poker hours and well as when i play in PA- although obviously on the 6 deckers higher swings than Vegas double deck. Awesome PA rules though.

I play mostly plo these days. Way more fun,worse players and the swings while way bigger than NLHE seem small compared to BJ
NLHE is so amazingly boring once you play plo.


I also absolutely do not recommend a stop loss especially one as low as 500 bb. That's my buy in in a lot of games.


If you have the discipline to withstand blackjack swings then you shouldnt tilt from poker. If you know you'll tilt then a stop loss can be a good idea- but a way better idea would be working on your mental game.

So many players who are otherwise decent tilt like crazy. I always say any idiot can play well when running well. Try playing well when you run bad for months on end. Few people can.

Its like card counting. A half way retarded monkey could tell you what the count is after some practice. But knowing how to use it and believing in the math while you keep losing is the tough part.

[Fiestastation]

I started learning poker about 3 years ago after a blackjack background, and at this point it has pretty well taken over my AP activities. I live fairly close to one of the better poker rooms in the country, and I play live 2/5 NL mostly. I do quite well. There is no heat, much less variance than BJ, and overall it is an easier way to make money. I have also played a couple of other places in the country; there are many casinos that offer profitable games, although Vegas games are difficult from my experience.

I would say that getting to a point where you are better than a breakeven player is not hard, easier than counting. Read a book or two and play a little low-stakes online. Mastering the game and maxing out your win rate is more intricate than counting. In this sense I find poker more entertaining also. The strategy is not static and one can always improve.

[ZenMaster_Flash]

"There is no heat, much less variance than BJ, and overall it is an easier way to make money."

Collusion between players is endemic to Poker Rooms.
Furthermore, the "rake" is way too high, assuring that
players are facing a significant house advantage."
Poker is typically dealt 30 hands per hour so with 'average'
results each player wins thrice per hour. With a $4 or $5 total rake per
hand, each player in a $1-$2 NLHE game, one is losing about $15 an
hour just to play. I found poker a tough means to earn a living. That
being said, playing BJ to support oneself has becoming a daunting task.

[tomf23]

Collusion between players is endemic to Poker Rooms.
Furthermore, the "rake" is way too high, assuring that
players are facing a significant house advantage."
Poker is typically dealt 30 hands per hour so with 'average'
results each player wins thrice per hour. With a $4 or $5 total rake per
hand, each player in a $1-$2 NLHE game, one is losing about $15 an
hour just to play. I found poker a tough means to earn a living. That
being said, playing BJ to support oneself has becoming a daunting task.

1) collusion is not a problem. i've never had a problem beating live games and i haven't played as low as 1/2 nl since 2004. and it would be a much bigger problem in plo than hold em if there was to be some collusion epidemic. of course it exists on some level.
2) rake is a factor- but there are terrible games with low rake i'll pass up for good games with higher rake. hell in the online poker heyday people complained about pacific poker and bodog having terrible software and higher rake than party poker stars etc. yet my win rate was a lot higher on those sites bc they players were worse. of course back then you could just play super tight and make money. now you need skill.
3) you're not going to make a killing in 1/2 nl. 1/2 nl is more of a hobby to make some extra money on the side.

[Fiestastation]

Collusion between players is endemic to Poker Rooms.
Furthermore, the "rake" is way too high, assuring that
players are facing a significant house advantage."
Poker is typically dealt 30 hands per hour so with 'average'
results each player wins thrice per hour. With a $4 or $5 total rake per
hand, each player in a $1-$2 NLHE game, one is losing about $15 an
hour just to play. I found poker a tough means to earn a living. That
being said, playing BJ to support oneself has becoming a daunting task.

[/QUOTE]

I have no doubt that collusion occurs in certain places, particularly higher stakes games. However, in the games I have experience playing in, I would be shocked to find out there was significant collusion. The players just aren't good, and don't take the game seriously. The games are filled with the same "ploppies" that infest blackjack tables, and they generally approach poker like they would approach the slot machine. They aren't there to fold.

The rake is significant, but generally 2/5 NL is the level of play where rake ceases to be proportionally large enough in relation to the game where it is "overcomable." Most rooms rake the same from a 2/5 pot as a 1/2 pot, so rake hurts the 1/2 player more, proportionally. I have found that 30 hands/hour is probably a slightly low estimate, maybe closer to 35-40, better when short handed.

All told, I would say a good, solid 2/5 player can earn figures that are somewhat similar to a big green to black player at BJ, but with lower bankroll requirements. For high stakes players, poker is not equivalent. In other words, the income is not scalable. Also, not everywhere has good 2/5 games all the time.

Just my experience.....poker is an easier way to earn a moderate-to-decent income than blackjack. Probably not the more profitable venture for those with very large bankrolls.



[QUOTE=ZenMaster_Flash;219255]

[tomf23]

I have no doubt that collusion occurs in certain places, particularly higher stakes games. However, in the games I have experience playing in, I would be shocked to find out there was significant collusion. The players just aren't good, and don't take the game seriously. The games are filled with the same "ploppies" that infest blackjack tables, and they generally approach poker like they would approach the slot machine. They aren't there to fold.

The rake is significant, but generally 2/5 NL is the level of play where rake ceases to be proportionally large enough in relation to the game where it is "overcomable." Most rooms rake the same from a 2/5 pot as a 1/2 pot, so rake hurts the 1/2 player more, proportionally. I have found that 30 hands/hour is probably a slightly low estimate, maybe closer to 35-40, better when short handed.

All told, I would say a good, solid 2/5 player can earn figures that are somewhat similar to a big green to black player at BJ, but with lower bankroll requirements. For high stakes players, poker is not equivalent. In other words, the income is not scalable. Also, not everywhere has good 2/5 games all the time.

Just my experience.....poker is an easier way to earn a moderate-to-decent income than blackjack. Probably not the more profitable venture for those with very large bankrolls.



This is all accurate.

You can make 25 dollars an hour in poker with much lower swings and a lower bank roll than bj.

A blackjakc background should help in poker.

PLO swings are big plus I only run it once.

To give an idea of the swings last year in my first 200 hours I made almost 90,000 dollars.in my next 600 hrs I was up about 2,000.i was very proud of the way I played during that stretvh and how well I handled it.

It actually made me a better player. It would break most people .

My goal is to play well in a lot of hours in high quality games.

At lower stakes games basically nobody is good.
They're either too loose passive too nitty or maniacs.

If you have a cookie cutter strategy you can beat lower games but you'll never beat higher games for anything worthwhile.

For example in most 5/5 plo games everyone is really passive and they think I'm an animal with as much as I raise preflop.

In 10/25 PLO they think I'm a nit.but there's so much 3 and 4 betting is those games playing or raising marginal crap is burning money.

As you move up poker is a game of constant adjustments.

[blueman]

I make $100 an hour playing good 2/5 and 5/10 games, nlh and plo. My blackjack hourly is higher, but i can play way more poker hours.

I started out as a poker player and picked up blackjack after a few years of poker.

[Meistro123]

Actually you should always run it multiple times when allowed; same EV but lower variance.

PLO also plays significantly slower than NLHE, especially at a really action table. In a good game you will often see as little as 15 hands an hour because you have so many mass multiway pots, the pots are so much bigger, the dealing takes longer, players face more difficult decisions for a lot more money etc.