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Hi my name is A.J. I"m new to the forum but I have been a gambler for the last 20 years - Im 39. My current bankroll is 8 grand which was a goal I set last year so that I could move back to Florida in October 2015. I currently live in Michigan and play mostly limit poker online and live I play 40 to 60 dollar buy in tourneys with payouts ranging from 500 to 1200 depending on what night I play and where I go.

 

My best game is blackjack followed closely by limit hold em and Omaha 8 or better. My dilemma is that I don't get much action at these games anymore live only Saturdays at Firekeepers for limit holdem and no Omaha hi lo. I don't mind online and play on Bovada but after 2 - 3 days in a row of playing Im bored and I have carpal tunnel so I much prefer live poker as well I think it is more sociable and healthier lifestyle. So I have settled for

having a home game once a month and playing the low buy in live tourneys unfortunately my last 6 results are being knocked out 6 th out of 40 players all in preflop wAA 5th out 30 with AA all in pre 10th out of100 all in w KK v A4 7 th out of 80 with KK vs AK 6th out of 35 with QQ vs A4 (again) and 3rd with JJ flopping a jack waiting til aft flop to go all in and losing to gutshot straight on river. In all of these situations I was 2nd or 3rd in chips and would've been massive chipleader with two of the 1st place prizes being over 1200. I win at least 70pct of the time at blackjack and the limit cash w my best attributes being patience blended with well timed aggression plus no tilt factor and an ability to get up from blackjack table with a 100 dollar profit .......... but quite honestly I am tilted beyond words at tourney results and have just decided not to play again til April. I realize that reading this it sounds like Im giving up too easily but I really enjoy a steady profit and having a healthy lifestyle outside gambling pursuits. I have friends who play 40 tourneys a month and have 3 to 4k downswings and sometimes 5k heaters - It seems I am in the minority but any thoughts are appreciated on the variance of grinding poker tourneys vs. cash only

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Southern Ontario is one of the last bastions of Live Limit Holdem

 

The Charity Casino in Brantford Ont has a lot of limit holdem action and there are games 24/7. Not sure what part of Michigan you're from but it's a 3 hour drive or so from Detroit if you want to take a road trip for some live poker and you have the free time.

 

Tournaments have massively more variance than cash games and and even if you have a big edge on the field you are going to have long streaks of non cashes

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Thanks for the info I have thought of moving to Canada anyway to be able to play Poker Stars and Full Tilt also for the universal healthcare - I will check out the limit hold em scene this spring. For any serious limit holdem players I am also interested in your thoughts and success at NLHE whether tourneys or cash games - prior to my recent bad run I have done quite well in tourneys with good blind structures but don't enjoy tourneys where you are less then 20 bbs deep after1st break even with an above avg stack which many of these charity tourneys have a turbo structure.

 

 

One other question I have is why NLHE is so popular? I can make an argument that 60pct the players would be better off playing 5/10 limit hold em rather than 1/2 NLHE --- even many talented NLHE players broke but it Is nearly impossible for a limit hold em player to go broke except if they move up to say 20/40 when they are only bankrolled for 5/10 etc. I have had 15 years of playing showing a significant profit every year. Also, I have always wondered why no studies have been done linking economic downturns to the popularity of NL Texas Hold em. If I know 25 NLHE players 20 of them are broke.

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NLHE is popular because that's what everybody saw on TV and wanted to play. You can't "Go All-In" in Limit Holdem

 

Before the online poker boom there were almost no live NLHE cash games for a couple reasons. The main one is that the edge between the best players and inexperienced ones means that the unskilled player has very little chance to get lucky and they go broke quickly so games dry up without a large pool of new players. Plus live full ring NLHE is a horribly boring game.

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When I first started to play many years ago, I used to like the 1-5 "spread limit" game they had at Circus, Circus in Vegas. The blind was $1 and then the next players could call the $1 or raise any amount from 1 to 5 dollars. This gives you some flexibility. For example if I had a pair of threes in the cut off position I might raise just $1 dollar to get hands like (king 8) on the button out. If the button or blind raised $5 I could get away from it. I guess I was playing small-ball before it was written about.

 

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