Hello FCPer's, I have been thinking a lot over the past few days... You see in a month I'm basically being given 3000$ as a clearance GIC. For those who don't know what GIC's are, they are like sure-bet investments that you give to the bank that generate a couple hundred dollars a year for you... not exactly a big deal. But in so many words, I am in a bit of a jam so I gotta withdraw it. (Kinda wanna get a new acoustic guitar, rent money, and union dues ) So that should run me a bit, but I will probably have over a grand left over, and here was my idea:

As some of you may know, I have pretty much been a devoted 10$-30$ SNG / 25$-50$ NL player at Tiger gaming for pretty much my whole online career, I did deposit money on Party about a year or two ago, but I busted out of arrogance of the game and bad management. What I was thinking was take 300$ of my cash and start playing the Limit bankroll grind that I saw so many do...

My placement rate of 10$ SnG's is 37%, meaning when I get top 3. But when I broke down the numbers, I am actually only winning about 2-3$ per SnG... which is what? 2-3$ an hour?

I own ToP, SSHE, HEFAP, and my question was this - Honestly, do you guys think a pretty strict NL player like me can adapt to Limit pretty easily at the right limit? Now I have an idea some will suggest me to go to the penny tables, but I really don't dig that... in fact it may hurt my game, or understanding of what limit is. Or should I just stick to SnG's?

I'm open for discussion and opinion. What I'm looking at is NL (A game I love but don't have the roll for it... I'm not putting 2500 as my roll for 25$ NL even though I should), or Limit (Have the roll, but not much experience), or SnG's (have 30 buyins, and a success rate, but takes FOREVER)...

You have SSHE. Re-read it. Make sure you have Pokertracker. Get rakeback at whatever site you want to play limit at. Many will reccomend Absolute b/c of it's rakeback/bonus system. While that's great, the games probably aren't quite as good as FullTilt or Stars. I'm not really sure what to tell you on which site to choose. I'm pretty loyal to FT, but the rakeback isn't great (only 26%) and they charge bonuses and stuff from the points store out of your rakeback. However, the games are good and the interface is good. Stars has the most players, but I personally don't like the interface and there's no rakeback. Anyway, the site you choose isn't all that important.

What's most important is that you re-read SSHE and make sure you understand it's concepts. $300 is a good starting roll. You can play .5/1 comfortably and if you understand SSHE and (at least loosely) follow the pre-flop guidelines for "tight games" (3-5 players to the flop, you won't see any games better than this online anyway), you should be able to start winning pretty much right away.

Post hands that you're not sure about in the strat forums and read the forums and post your comments on other people's hands. It will help you with your thought processes as you learn the game.

Good Luck.

I think mixing up games and playing limit for a while is probably a good idea, as you'll feel like you're starting fresh, and should find it interesting playing a new game.

With that said, if you really want to play NL, no way on earth do you need 100 buy-ins. That's ridiculously high, even for a professional player. I make my entire income from playing poker, and felt comfortable occasionally sitting at 10/20 NL with 15 buy-ins, (I have > 25 now, but I did sit with that much as recently as yesterday).

I think I'll go with FullTilt, may I ask about pokertracker? I know it irons out the leaks in one's game, but how much does it cost and how do I go about getting it?

And I have never deposited at FT before so I assume they'll offer me a 50% rakeback bonus or whatnot. Many thanks.

How many buyins should I have for NL? I mean to be safe, other players are different, I can see myself being okay with 30... but maybe that will come later if I can grind it up a lot. However if that happens I'll probably be a devoted limit player.

If you're going to sign up at Full Tilt, they have a 100% $600 bonus. Be sure to get rakeback also, if you dont know where/how..PM me and i can refer you to the affiliate i use, or at least tell you where to find others with out spamming up the forum here.

And honestly, at the lower limits, you're MUCH better grinding out NL than LHE. It will be much easier and faster to build up your roll playing SSNL than limit. Build up your roll that way and if you still want to jump into LHE I say wait untill you have the roll for 1/2 (about $600). I say 1/2 because thats the first level of LHE where you can start to clear bonuses at a decent rate and build up a good amount of rakeback for yourself. I still say from my own experiences that online LHE is a dying game, even at 6max and you're better off beating up all the fish in the SSNL games.

I believe Pokertracker costs $50 if you just buy it. I think it's well worth it. You get stats on your own game, which as you said helps you find and iron out leaks. It also records every hand you play, so you get tons of useful information about your opponents. If you use is with a program like PAHUD, or Gametime+, you can have info about your opponents displayed on your table in real time. Personally, I prefer GT+, it has a nicer looking interface IMO and is free, many people think PAHUD is far superior though.

There is also a way to get pokertracker for free, however it might be more trouble to you than it's worth. If you go to pokersourceonline.com, and sign up for a site through them you can get pokertracker as a free gift. The problem here is that if you sign up through them, you can't get rakeback. If I were just starting out with $300, I'd pay the $50 to get pokertracker and just play with a $250 roll. It will eventually pay for itself and I think rakeback is worth a ton more than getting a free edition of Pokertracker.

If you want to go with FullTilt, they'll give you a bonus on your first deposit and you can get up to 27% rakeback by signing up through an affiliate. I only have 26% b/c I signed up a long time ago, which ticks me off, but I digress. I'd love to have the referral if you want to sign up through me, but I can only get you 26% and I know for a fact you can get 27% through rakebreak.com, I know several people on here could refer you through that site and get credit for it (Zach, Abba, dannyg, and some others). So, I'd suggest contacting one of them to get a referral code for rakeback.

Another poster said that online LHE is dying. In some ways it is, you certainly missed out on the glory days. However, the games aren't terrible at the low limits, I'm pretty sure .5/1 is still going to be pretty easy to beat. It's a good game to learn and even as the games get higher, they're still beatable. The players are still exploitable, it just may be harder to make big money at it than it was a couple years ago. Ultimately though, you should play what you're best at. I play almost exclusively LHE, because that's what I'm good at. I suck at NL cash games and at the moment I'm not that interested in trying to get better (down the road I will probably work on my game at some point, but right now I'm pretty content with limit). That said, if you are capable of consistently beating NL cash, you're probably better off playing that. Right now, that's where the majority of the players are and that's where the majority of the money is. I'm pretty sure you can make more playing NL than you can playing limit, but you have to know what you're doing. And IMO, NL is a much more boring game than limit. The saying hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror sums it up perfectly and that's not appealing to me. If that's appealing to you, play NL...you can almost certainly make more at it. Finally, don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can beat NL cash just b/c you've shown good results in SnGs and MTTs. Trust me, the two are completely different. I'm a capable (though not great) tournament player, however, I'm a complete donk at NL cash. It's two completely different skill sets. A great NL cash player could probably step right into tournaments and beat them, but the opposite is not true.

Anyway, I hope all that helps. Feel free to PM me if I can help you further and good luck on your LHE journey.

This is all fantastic and helpful, yes, I've been a student of NL Hold'em for almost 2.5 years, maybe 3. Now in all honesty the reason I was considering going with limit was because No Limit's results haven't been the best for me - Actually to be honest a lot of the time I don't manage my roll very well, or I hit a string of badbeats - Whenever I deposit I deposit these small amounts. Sometimes I go on a rush and cash out a few hundred, other times I bust. After almost 2 years of online play I'm getting sick of not having the discipline sort of speak.

I have gained a lot of wisdom and experience since I started online, and I AM confident I can smash the 25$NL games like I've done in the past, but my only worry is the 10 BUYIN scenario... but I guess it wont be that big of a problem, esp. with my brand spankin' new pokertracker right?

You really shouldnt feel secure in your ability to win until you've proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The typical loser online isnt gambler-joe who sticks in a few hundred raising every hand, calling down with jack high and bluffing in spots where he couldnt possibly get the other guy to fold. Those are rare and beautiful exceptions.

The typical losers online are guys who get an undeserving sense of confidence from having read a poker book, posted on a poker message board, and have instilled themselves with a false sense of security in their own abilities. Almost every single person who plays poker thinks they're "good enough". Few are.

Nonetheless, if you're trying, you might as well improve your chances and get rakeback.
My link for rakeback is this:
http://www.rakebreak.com/index.php?AFF=230


AP and fulltilt are the best options.

Whore.

Well, in my defense I have played a long time online and live... but I wont say your theory is wrong. I always found with myself it was a problem of Bankroll management. Not to say I haven't cashed out good amounts, I have. But I just want a solid start.

Im going to go out on a limb and guess that your winnings primarily come from live poker and the losses online.

Part of that is probably because live players are infinitely worse.
Part of that is probably because people tend to more vividly remember the wins than losses and when doing the accounting in your head it leads to overly generous estimates.
You're playing for very small margins. So if you are even slightly more inclined to recall winning sessions than losing ones, it will warp your impression of how you're actually doing.
Online records are more concrete and losses not as easily forgotten.

This is true for almost everyone. Though it really has no baring on whether they're actually winning or not.

I knew Abba would be all over this.
now I can't do my Abba imitation post.

Is it weird that I can't even remember the last winning live session I've had?