I'm writing this with a completely open mind, open for any replies.

I want to hear from people who play fulltime, or over 20+ hours a week.

I am playing 2/3NL 200max buyin (kinda lame). I'm playing TAG - LAG. I'm seeing maybe on average 25% flops, at fullring.
some sessions might be a bit closer to 30%.

I have played everyday for the last 14 days, some days are 1 session, some days i play in the morning, and then again at night.
These arent stats during the session, these are booked wins, or losses.

I havent experienced anything like this yet, i've had a losing week, an up and down week, but these stats are kinda ridiculous, and i'm going to give myself an ulcer.

So, please.. to help prep myself for the next 6 months of fulltime play when i move back to north america tell me this isnt "standard"


day 1 +$160.00

day 2A -450cash,-100for tourney
day 2B +$500

day 3A -200
day 3B +$665

day 4A -300(so lame)
day 4B +$550

day 5A +$200
day 5B +$230 ***($50 (for 1/2 hour) + 300 2nd place sit & go, - 120buyin = $180)

Five day total $1255.00

day 6A +$280
day 6B +$115 (chopped for 1st in 75 sit & go for $250,DNF in 60 MTT)

day 7, so sick.
-600 in cash (was back to -300 at one point.)
-100 tourney


day 8 -100 tourney day off from cash games

day 9A +$330
9B -120
9C +$150 in freeroll
9D +$240
day 9 total = +$600

day 10
-125 for satelite
-600 cash


day 11
-440 cash

day 12
+$175

day 13
+$240

day 14A -400
day 14B +$490

That looks pretty normal.

tough to decipher anything here without number of hands or hours

My BR, while smaller, experiences similar swings on a session basis. I play probably 30 hours a week, but I *never* play during the day during the week.

1) Because I have a real job

2) Because people with jobs and no money problems aren't throwing their money away during these hours.

Also, if you're seeing 25% of flops at full ring... you're going to experience a lot of variance by the nature of how you're playing.

not true, there are less but people from other parts of the world are horrible gamblers.

(it is always 6:00pm somewhere)

True... but he's prepping to deal with American traffic... and I'm fairly sure America's got the highest number of idiots with money.

If I were to quit my job to play cards I'd get up at 3 p.m. every day and play 5 p.m. to 2 in the morning straight through (eastern time)

yea, i think you're playing too many flops Royal. Tighten up a bit and i'm sure you'll see different results.

The laggier you are, the swingier your results are going to be. 30% vpip is laggy for a 6 max player, I image its suuuuuper laggy for a FR player!

Mark

I don't really think you can comment about the amount of flops he's playing.

A) 25% is a standard %, maybe i'm wrong but i don't think Royal thinks that's a precise/accurate/exact figure.

Every table is a different situation, Royal's ran $250 up to 10k so is obviously a very good player, maybe his style could be more profitable, but he's 100% better to judge how he is playing in general than we are.

no offense but the data you have given us isn't really good enough to give you any real advice.

I think you might want to think about a stop loss because your loses seem to be larger than your wins, which I would think would be from playing bad due to tilting.

When I run bad, I start to play bad. I have to stop playing, get two good night's sleep, get in a couple really hard workouts, get laid, and then I tighten up massively until I get it turned around and start playing better AND making better reads. Somehow, it all comes around again.

I know its a small sample, but I've never played this many hours & sessions in a row. And was wondering if these types of swings are common amongst fulltimers.

when i did the fulltime run to 10k it was like 25-30 hours a week. or roughly 4 sessions, and It seemed to go a lot smoother than these past 2 weeks have gone.

i have my stopped losses at 3bi's, although i agree with tilting. a few times i've let my ego get in the way when i should have walked away.

Does it matter if you're seeing less hands per hour and the value of hands goes up?

I find a lot of times i'm throwing in a call preflop simply because of the extreme value and implied odds i'm getting.

I try and talk myself out of playing the way the table wants me too tho




1 thing i have noticed is when i'm stuck during the morning and return at night, i return with rage.

I actually seem to be super in the zone out of sheer anger from my morning session and make some pretty sick reads.

Fewer hands per hour is inherent in live play. Playing looser to be involved in more hands simply so you have a chance to win more pots is a pretty big error IMHO. If you want more hands per hour, play online. Your FR standards should be the same at a FR online table or a FR live table.

You really should keep track of hours and not just amounts. Your hourly rate is what you wanna pay attention to overall if you're a live player, since it's a determination of how effectively you're beating the game and if your time is being well spent. (Total winnings - expenses)/Hours

Also, if you're really gonna do this seriously, take a notepad or something and scribble down your hands and what you do with them. Nothing complex, but at a bare min, make a little matrix for each orbit and write in your hand and whether or not you play it and your net for the hand or something. Playing 30% of hands is insane at a FR table. A laggy style there should be playing around 20-23% and TAG is more like 17-20% I think.

I'm kind of curious why you wrote things like "so lame" and "so sick" next to some of the losing sessions. I know that losing is not fun and all but surely you know that it has to happen sometimes. 3 buy-ins can be painful but it seems to be a good stop-loss and it looks like you never crossed that threshold. But a buy-in and a half is really nothing to be concerned about.

Regarding the swings, I think it is largely due to playing as many hands as you are. And as others have said, more data is needed. But try tightening the screws a bit and see how your results fare.

Ya, i think i'm closer to 22-25% the 30% is only on rare occasions, but there have been a few games where i've probably played close to that for a little bit.
mostly situational. tighter tables live where there is 4 or 5 people limping to the flop and i'm in late position with suited connecting cards etc...
probably not good poker practice and something i should stop doing.




Um, those are sessions where i am up like 300 or 400 after an hour or two and then end up stuck on the day

1.Lose one buy in in the morning
2.Come back in the evening
3.Profit

Seriously though, i think the thing you may be suffering from is that you're adjusting to a new lifestyle/country and maybe your doubting yourself a bit because your not sure whether you can cut it or not.

You seem to be a pretty confident guy from the posts i've read, so back yourself to play for a sustained period of time (i mean in terms of months) and see where you after after that. If your worrying about whether you should even be in Australia or not while your playing poker for a living there, i think your play will suffer.

I hope so,

thanks for the tips NL strat family.

you seem to have much more losses in your A sessions than your B sessions.

the hours of 7am-1pm can very often be horrible to make a living, as the ratio of good players is so much higher than other hours of the day.

you should already have figured this out from common sense, but now u have your own results to back up this idea:
"Dont Play during those shitty hours!!"

i also prefer having a 1buyin stop loss. if u just cant commit to this maybe make 2buyins a new stop, 3 just seems way too much. with only a 1buyin stopping point, your bad days are never too bad. keep in mind mental health is a big key in poker also in life. also, sometimes u bust out of your entire buyin quickly, then it is like you have the rest of the day off to do something fun, relax, or whatever. kinda like calling off work for the day. plus, when u frequently lose 2 or 3 buyins, those sessions where u just grind and possibly win 80bucks in 4hours become much less satisfactory, wich may cause u to blow off these small winning sessions by trying to press and win at least one complete buyin

A 1-buyin stop loss is pretty ridiculous as you can get unlucky in any one hand and get stacked.

For the more part, unless you have tilt issues, I think that stop-loss limits are often kind of silly. If you recognize that the game is good and you're playing well enough to beat it, then you should stay for as long as you feel like playing. The minute you see your edge disappear, whether it's from being there too long, losing too much money or whatever, it's time to go. It shouldn't matter how much you're up or down, it's all 1 session anyway.

I'm not sure about this statement.

In my experience, you can play a lot more hands at 1-2NL live because:
1) that $10-15 raise from EP is going to get called in 5 spots before it gets to you, or
1b) that EP limp is going to trigger a series of limps that are rarely attacked by LP players,
2) people @ 1-2NL are WAY more likely to stack off with marginal hands, improving (implied) odds further,
3) the ability to read players is so much greater (for me) live than online, I'm far more comfortable in marginal situations,
4) gotta get those chips off that donkey in the 4-hole before someone else does

Playing looser to be involved in more hands so you have a chance to win BIGGER pots is how I would put it, I suppose. I suspect this is not true as you move up in limits, but it works for me at mine...

He basically said that since he sees fewer hands due to the slower nature of play, he's more apt to become involved since he has fewer chances. That kind of translates to: I'm kinda bored so I'm gonna spalsh around a little.

The value of hands does not change simply because there are fewer of them.

Not sure if you're kidding on this one or not, but I want to point out that it is somewhat flawed thinking.

If you're making -EV decisions to get some players chips before someone else does, you're just gambling, and gambling poorly.

You don't need to take an individual's chips, you only need to win money from the collective group of opponents you play. If you don't happen to run into that perfect hand to bust the donk today, there'll be a new one tomorrow.

Long run baby.

Yeah, I'd agree with that, certainly. But that doesn't mean the value of hands doesn't increase in a live setting, where there happen to be fewer of them. But yeah, I'm not suggesting splashing around because you're bored.

Yeah, the last one was mostly a joke. I say mostly because, as I said, I'm far more comfortable in marginal situations live than online, and I will certainly look to play more hands against players that I can manipulate.

However, I don't really 'rush to take that guys chips' because, never mind tomorrow, if he busts another 'that guy' is just itching to take his seat.

Yeah, I assumed you understood, but I do it for the benefit of the lurkers.

I've always thought early a.m. was full of old men who can't fold an ace.
You have to adjust your play accordingly.
I truly believe that the personality of a poker game flows with the time of day.



I've noticed this, too and this is SO TOTALLY action-dependent.
If the table is giving no action, there's no use splashing.
If the table is giving action, splashing can be insanely profitable.
Read your table.



True in the literal sense. But if we can catch that hidden gapper straight against the old guy who can't lay down and ace (see above) the value of some hands increases tremendously.



I am so much more comfortable live where I can see the person, there is really no comparison.

Yeah, but if you read his post, he basically was saying that the value of hands goes up since there are fewer of them and hence, fewer opportinuties to win money making each opportunity relatively more important, which just isn't true.

This is just wrong. That has everything to do with the player you're playing against and nothing to do with the number of hands that you're getting to play. Implied odds are implied odds. They don't go up becuase you see 30 hands an hour instead of 300.

Yeah, I don't think we disagree, I just didn't read what he wrote to mean that.

I think I disagreed with you on this once before. I still don't agree and maybe it's a leak of mine, but I don't understand it. Sitting at a table with 7 solid players, yourself, and one donk. Why would you not be trying to get in as many hands with donk as possible?

You know winning off of the others is going to be difficult, so to me, it's a race to get the donk's buyin(s). I'm not going to try and get my money in bad against anyone, but if I had to get my money in bad, better against a donk than a solid player.

So please explain again, even if it's tedious. This "one long session" stuff doesn't make sense to me though. If I had one long session with the same 8 players my strategy would be to take risks against the donk and play hands against him because he'll be easier to stack.

thats because i didnt write it.

I posed a question, if you look there is a question mark at the end of that statement where i mention, seeing less hands will value go up?

soo. ya, no idea where acid gets some of his thought process from

I agree with what you wrote there. Picking our opponents is a big deal when we know them well. That doesn't mean to go completely nuts, but I think it does mean adding marginal hands (e.g., J 8 ) that we might otherwise fold.

It's not that getting into pots with the donk is a bad idea.

It's that making -EV decisions to get into those pots is a bad idea.

I think we all can recognize a profitable situation when we see it. Playing lots of hands vs the donks is a profitable situation, due to a lot of factors.

Mindlessly calling raises with poor hands is not a good idea. If you just happen to be running poorly, and being dealt poor starting hands, you just wait. If you don't happen to stack this guy, there's another one coming with more dead money.

So basically, it's not that we don't want to play hands against him, we just don't need to necessarily force things. That being said, your range vs him will be wider than it would be vs a solid player. So you are taking shots at him with more hands than you would vs a good player. There are still hands that are unplayable, and going out of your way to get into situations vs the donk with bad hands, bad position, bad implied odds, poor pot odds, etc, is still a losing proposition.

And, on the long run thing, people are very emotionally invested in their money. It's so illogical though. It's the same thing that comes up when you play HU and someone hits and runs. It's complete irrelevant who you win or lose money to. What's relevant is your overall result. Don't think of it like you NEED to bust this fish before someone else does. If you don't happen to be the guy to do it, there's going to be more fish. There's 4 on the waitlist, 4 on the other table, etc. In HU games, people lose a buyin to someone, they feel the need to get it back from them directly. If that person leaves, they go on extreme monkey tilt from them hitting and running. A new fish sits down, and they promptly get that buyin back, and then some. What's the difference between the two fish? Nothing. It doesn't matter where the money comes from. The only difference is their screen name. Forget that shit. What's the difference if you win $1 from 1 million people, or lose $900,000 to one person, and win 1.9 million from the other million people? You're still up a million dollars.

Yeah, what David said.

We're still expanding our range, but we're not forcing anything because "OMG WE NEED TO BUST THIS GUY BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES".

Also, if another donk busts him, now another donk has 2x the money he had, and he'll inevitably distribute it amongst the table.

Just don't force things for the wrong reasons.

Meh, I'm having a similar slump lately and i don't know if its the norm or if its related to being more LAG. I'm -300 over my last 10 sessions.

Keep in mind I play these sessions about once every week or two weeks apart from each other.

11-19-07 -400
11-25-07 +600
12-1-07 +420
12-9-07 -420
12-11-07 -400
12-29-07 -135
1-13-08 +300
1-19-08 +600
2-2-08 -165
2-10-08 -300

Normal downswing? I have a feeling i can have a better win rate than this, but each of these sessions is around 4-6 hours in length. Also, there are alot of sessions in this time span where the games were really good, +EV if i stayed in them, but i had to leave due to time circumstances with my family. thoughts?

With the amount that you play, you're gonna have a really hard time telling whether there are actual fundamental flaws in your game or if you're just running bad. 10 sessions and 60ish hours of live poker is a drop in the hat in the scheme of things. You need a bigger sample size before you can attribute the results to anything other than standard variance.

My december and january were ungodly bad

how bad?

Never ask that again.

Ah, i see. Well here's to hoping your luck turns around

It's OK.

PM