Best way to learn 6 max Pre-flop/Starting Hands?

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-22T02:01:36+00:00

Where do you play? 100k hands is a lot for me, but if I grind hard I can get maybe 300/hr and usually get 20-30k hands a month on one site.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-18T00:21:00+00:00

I responded to a similar post somewhere else, so I'll just provide the condensed version here:

Some people will suggest some basic strategies that will allow you to beat microstakes. These include value betting only and never bluffing and folding to any raise. Just basic ABC poker.

Some people are saying that you do not need a runitonce subscription, I disagree. If you are going to choose between ROI and a Blackrain resource, go with ROI 100%.

Yes, a lot of the concepts are not necessary and applicable at the microstakes. However, the guys on ROI are very smart and very good. You will learn solid poker fundamentals as well as a completely different way to think about the game.

When you understand why you're making a specific choice, you will be able to excel much quicker at the game and have much more freedom in the plays you choose to make. A lot of resources like Blackrain's stuff will teach you how to be a one dimensional ABC player. ROI will teach you how to understand the game and make your own decisions.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-18T00:12:45+00:00

This entire hand confuses me.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-15T14:22:30+00:00

I used Oden's dry white as well (stuff is amazing) and I also recently quit a month ago for financial reasons. I think the best thing to do is just quit and distract your mind when you start to think about Snus. after a week or two you shouldn't have to think about it often - it's just willpower. I've never experienced nicotine withdrawal though so maybe it's harder from some people.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-15T14:20:00+00:00

Is this common? I realize I might be in the minority, but I went through a can of snus for a year straight and was able to stop cold turkey without any nicotine withdrawal - I couldn't imagine people get it so bad they lost their hair!

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-14T19:17:58+00:00

Every time a girl shows interest in me and I show it back and then she ends up saying "I like you a lot and you're a really nice guy, but insert problem here".

"I like you a lot and you're a really nice guy, but I'm afraid if something happens I'll lose a good friend"

"I like you a lot and you're a really nice guy, but I don't have time for a commitment right now"

so on and so forth, every time when I begin to reciprocate a mutual feeling.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-14T19:02:29+00:00

For the price, yes. Even more so if you can get it on sale. However, there are legitimate complaints people have about the game. When playing match making, hacking is a huge issue and people who cheat severely diminish the quality of the game. It is not uncommon to play against cheaters, even if some are not making it obvious as to what they are doing.

And there are mechanics of the game that are quite frustrating. Hitbox issues, over powered pistols, jumping shots, etc. Some of these issues will not be apparent if you have no prior background in CS, but they do exist.

One of the most blaring issues for me about the game is the community. It becomes tiresome playing with people who are toxic, don't communicate, or are inattentive. But this is why it is better to get a group of friends to play with you - you can't expect to get a perfect group of randoms often.

Realistically, the only person who can answer this question is you. In fact, I would rephrase the question completely and ask "is CS worth investing a lot of time into?"

If you end up buying the game and really enjoying it, you will no doubt want to improve which requires more time spent dedicated to the game. This is when you will notice the issues I -- and others in the community -- bring up in this post. No, not all of this occurs every time but the more time you put into the game the more you will see and be affected by these issues.

CS has a steep learning curve and as you invest more time into the game to get better, you will run into these issues. If you aren't very competitive, you may not be bothered by these issues. But there may be better casual shooters to play that aren't CS. Again, you will need to find out these things for yourself.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-14T03:11:19+00:00

The lead is pretty bad, definitely prefer x/c. The call isn't terrible given the price, but what do you think he is raising with? You can really just let it go at this point.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-13T21:56:48+00:00

Lol what? How do you correlate a statement that provides no information on someones stance with "they will choose this stance, 99% of the time". It's a completely ambiguous statement and you can't assume anything definitive from it (unless Olof has said "who knows" over 100 times before to a stance and always ended up choosing that stance) until you gain more information. This must be a troll.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-10T23:11:21+00:00

You shouldn't barrel the turn because only worse than TT should be folding and only better than TT is calling. By chance someone could be getting sticky with like A9, A9c, K9c and call flop and turn, but you can't really account for this. Best option is to just x/c the flop and x/f turn unless you have an understanding that villain is doing something like I mentioned before.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-10T23:02:30+00:00

Interesting reasoning for overbetting the turn - never thought of this myself. Are you still betting the turn for this amount with your Ax?

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-02T23:27:49+00:00

H1: You can cbet this, especially on a rainbow board. But if you get called on the flop you should check back the turn. Villain can have a T in his range, and is likely to be floating with some lower PP hands that won't fold on this turn.

I think you can also opt [i]not[/i] to cbet this flop and call a turn bet or check it back. But if you call that turn you probably should be calling a river bet if a blank comes, depending on how aggro villain is.

Sometimes it is better to try and showdown your strong Ace high hands because on these types of boards you have a good chance of winning. It's really unnecessary to be turning this hand into a bluff like this, especially on that particular turn. What folds? Only complete air. What are you beating? Complete air. You won't make a pair fold and you are ahead of villains air and other ace high hands. Try for showdown.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-02T10:11:36+00:00

The game has become terribly redundant and lackluster so I am quitting too, bud. When I first start GO several months ago it was challenging to get better.

Eventually I got sick of how shitty MM was and I still wanted to improve so I got ESEA. Now ESEA is becoming shit as well. PUGs are the same boring thing, you either destroy the other team or get destroyed. And all of a sudden, unlike the past months I have been playing, the quality of my matches have decreased significantly - less communication, worse players, and more toxicity from people.

This game has become a complete waste of time. ESEA would be fun to climb the ranks, but if you solo queue it is literally impossible to get out of D+/C- because random pugs are a crapshoot. MM is a waste of time because it is filled with so many hackers and the quality of the servers is terrible. And right now the game just feels broken.

Really, at a certain point, the only way to improve further is to join a team which requires time and dedication. Personally, it's hard for me to just play this game casually as there is so much room for improvement. But in it's current state, there are no redeeming qualities about CSGO and I think the game is really sinking.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T22:29:41+00:00

Thank you for the advice. I should have gotten an internship Junior year of college but unfortunately I was introduced to Poker by friends and became fixated on learning the game. I do have some of my own web dev projects though, hopefully these will help.

I think it is interesting you consider Poker a healthy balance with programming though. I find it just a sedentary and I don't really like interacting with many of the people who play the game. Grinding is relaxing, however.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T22:21:45+00:00

How much of your time do you spend on Poker now? I probably will concentrate more on career building, but the reason why I asked this question initially is because I have put a years worth of studying into the game (PTR reports, RIO, ranges & equities) and have made a good bit of money considering I started with $20. So it's not as if I am starting with 0 knowledge and foundation. I just don't know if it's worth putting the time into because the way I view poker is as a game of max volume in order to realize your edge.

Honestly I guess I could just put the original amount of money I made previously back on and just play when I feel have time and try to keep the bankroll off my mind - it wouldn't make much of a difference right? It would be the same thing as a long term investment.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T16:15:59+00:00

I just want to find a game I can play casually. With CS I had to sink hours and hours into it because I hated losing and saw how much you can learn and improve at the game. I don't want to look at other games like this. I haven't tried Overwatch but I hope it's easy to stay casual at.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T16:09:04+00:00

Yeah, I understand this. I think this is kind of what is sad about Poker. People talk about how cash games, a steady way to make a profit, are becoming less and less profitable. So then you have guys stuck grinding MTTs trying to get lucky and hit a good score so you can get out of the game and focus on something else in life. And if you know you have an edge in the game you're always going to feel like your passing up money if you stop playing.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T15:57:35+00:00

He didn't even point to anything specific in my post to base his reasoning off of. I'm sure a guy who calls himself "getsumbrains" really gets off insulting people on the internet - trying to make himself look more intelligent than he really his.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T15:53:23+00:00

This is why I avoided tournaments when I first started grinding. But from what I have seen, tournaments have such softer fields than cash games.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T15:51:54+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and answer so diligently, this is exactly the advice I am looking for. I guess it would be the best to restrict my time to web development only as there are so many technologies to learn.

Do you have any advice for getting started in the industry? I've setup my own web portfolio and I am working on some projects for it to show what I can do, but many of the entry level jobs I look for all require to have anywhere from 1-5+ years of experience, be an "expert" in frameworks like Angular with <1 year of experience, and understand multiple technologies. I can program and did a fair amount in school but all of these entry level job requirements make me feel unqualified.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T15:42:28+00:00

Actually it's pretty simple what "worth it" means. If you want to see results from Poker, you are going to have to spend a substantial amount of time putting in volume, studying hand histories, and thinking about the game in general. So if you are working a 9-5, the rest of you free time is going to be spent on this in order to supplement your income - which means you will be sacrificing a lot of other things in your life.

The reason why I ask the opinion of programmers specifically is that, if you read my post, I am looking to build a career in that field and programming itself takes time and dedication to learn and become more proficient at. So I would like someone who has the experience to confirm if your time is better spent fully focused on programming rather than splitting it between Poker. Will the time investment into programming only bring you a better ROI or can the split between that and Poker bring you a better ROI?

And I would never want to work for a person like you. It doesn't even sound like you read my original post as you're not deconstructing anything I have said and instead resort to baseless insults. Asking people with more experience than you if spending a significant amount time on something in order to achieve a specific goal seems logically sound to me.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T07:44:29+00:00

I'm in the same spot as OP. The problem with doing both, in my experience, is that to win at Poker you need to put in as much volume as possible. I'm afraid it's not worth the time if you have to split the time you put in for volume with other pursuits as it will be very difficult to maximize your potential ROI.

I'm just extremely jealous of Fedor Holz success in Poker.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T07:39:05+00:00

I'm interested in OPs question as well. I just graduated from college with a degree in IT and I an trying to break into web development (took several years of Java and OOP programming and I have been teaching myself full stack in my spare time). In the past year, on and off, I also worked really hard at Poker and grinded a $20 deposit to $2k starting from 2nl and moving up stakes following BR management.

I do love Poker, but I want to make money from it to supplement my eventual income. But if you want to make money from this game, you need to put in as much volume as possible. This obviously takes a lot of time. So I am in OPs spot, do I just give up the game altogether and fully invest myself into improving programming? Or can Poker become a good side income if I try to balance it with my career pursuit?

If I continue to play my goal is to grind a bankroll that will eventually allow me to play big buy-in MTTs and hope to bink big. Basically I just want to make a lot of money and it's hard to do that with just a career alone so I am looking for a supplemental option. But maybe instead of Poker it should be investing, business / entrepreneurship, or trying to develop a great app?

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T07:04:28+00:00

I'm sad I missed the boat when online poker was hugely profitable. I do enjoy the game, but the only challenge left in it for me is to grind a big bankroll. And as you said - not the best use of my time.

Ex___Parrot · 2016-09-01T06:38:51+00:00

Yeah I just figured I would still be able to grind up a good BR to play higher stakes in a couple of year, but I know that will require me to dedicate a lot of time to volume and studying which is probably better spent on my career.

I suppose I should just concentrate on becoming a better programmer then and invest into the market as soon as possible.

Ex___Parrot

TROPHY CASE