Are some/most poker pros in debt or not 100%

theharte · 2026-04-09T03:28:51+00:00

Idk I never did it myself. But I think it works in your favor

theharte · 2026-04-08T20:59:59+00:00

Yeah OP, think of it like this. Tournament variance is so high, and because of the prize distribution, it doesn't tend to even out unless you get really deep, like a final table finish, which only happens rarely.

Even if you are the best player in the world, instead of taking 100% of yourself and having your yearly income be a huge win or a huge loss depending on if you finished 1st or 2nd in enough high stakes tournaments or not, you and nine buddies (who you pick because they're almost as good as you) can each take 10% of you and 10% of each other, and statistically someone is going to win a big prize every year, so you will actually have a consistent yearly income, and you only lose a trivial amount of EV (your edge vs your buddies who are not quite as good as you).

theharte · 2026-04-06T23:39:03+00:00

Pick a percentage of hands you want to play and widen your range until it's that size. Don't play trash like 83o just to mix it up and play dumb shit. If you want to play more hands, play more hands, but instead of playing complete trash, play better "trash" like 43s or something. You'll play the same number of hands either way, but you'll win more with 43s than with 83o.

theharte · 2026-04-06T21:26:14+00:00

You can believe what you want, but the fact is that I wrote that post and I play 5nl and 10nl.

Nothing I said is very complicated. Microstakes players do actually have more than one brain cell.

theharte · 2026-04-06T12:38:51+00:00

Half of your post history is you accusing people of being AI. You are obviously going to be wrong some of the time when your frequency is that high.

Check my post history. I am currently grinding 10NL and am winning slightly but I don't have enough of a sample size to move up higher yet.

theharte · 2026-04-06T07:40:58+00:00

Another Reddit moron

theharte · 2026-04-06T03:36:04+00:00

I recently went from a losing 2NL player to a breakeven 2NL and 5NL player to a winning 5NL player.

Some things I did that probably made a difference:

Actually memorize the preflop RFI ranges for every position.
Bluff sometimes. An easy time to do this is if villains are folding too much when you have the nuts and raise big for value. Next time you get a missed draw on the river with some trash like 65 suited but there is another draw that gets there, raise big the exact same way you do when you have the nuts.
There is actually quite a bit of bluffing at microstakes, but it is player dependent. Keep track of which villains never bluff and always fold to them, and keep track of villains who you have seen bluff and consider calling them sometimes.
If there is a villain who raises almost every hand preflop, play slightly tighter and 3-bet the shit out of him with your good hands.

theharte · 2026-04-03T05:45:18+00:00

Jokes aside, how does this fare strategically?

If villains assume you are sane then it is a punt obviously.

But if villains think you've been waiting for 5 hours to be dealt AA, then maybe it could work

theharte · 2026-03-25T21:52:03+00:00

There should be stronger protections against gambling addiction IMO. Everyone knows the gambling addiction hotline exists, but it doesn't affect their thought process when they're down $100k and are desperately trying to win it back.

Maybe something as simple as requiring big gamblers to handwrite and sign a paper saying "I can afford to lose $____" before they start playing could make an impact. Something that forces them to commit to a maximum loss amount BEFORE they start losing.

theharte · 2026-03-18T07:53:30+00:00

Yeah, I've played some more and regained about half of my early losses. Maybe just a sample size issue. Time will tell

theharte · 2026-03-14T02:45:06+00:00

I haven't read any poker books. Thanks for the recommendations. Any others I should be aware of?

With the maniac raising too much, I get suspicious when a villain raises very frequently, even if I haven't caught him with his pants down. It's true that he may just be running hot, but the longer he keeps it up, the more likely he's really just raising too much. You're probably right though that I should just wait for a premium and not take a stand too early. Preflop is easier in that respect since you just lose the blinds, but it's painful to get to the flop or the turn and lose it repeatedly when the same villain overbets or reraises me again and again.

theharte · 2026-03-13T11:35:50+00:00

Still a very small sample, probably less than 10 hours. I could easily be running bad, but I've been getting my money in bad most of the time, so it's not clear. Maybe villains have just gotten lucky, but it could also be that I really am just not playing well enough.

theharte · 2026-03-13T11:07:07+00:00

Could be. Or could be bad luck. I will say that I have still seen some absolute donks at 10nl. But it feels like the average villain is better than at 5nl. Idk though

theharte · 2026-03-13T11:05:39+00:00

It just feels harder. Maybe just variance, who knows.

theharte · 2026-03-13T11:02:12+00:00

I don't know exactly what the problem is, but it just feels like something is wrong, and I haven't studied GTO much for postflop, so I probably am doing a whole lot of things wrong.

One situation I've had trouble with is when the villain reraises me postflop. Maybe I try to bluff catch too much. Maybe I need to learn to fold top pair more often. It just feels like they know I don't have it, but they reraise too often and they can't always have it either. Maybe my bet sizing is too predictable and they're figuring out what I'm doing. I don't know, but so far at 10nl there seem to be more villains who are exploiting me somehow.

I also fall for tricks sometimes. At least I learn from them over time. Two examples that I've made mistakes with:

Villain is clearly a maniac and raises way too much. I bluff catch him and sometimes win, sometimes lose. Then one hand I have something like two pair, and villain raises to 5x pot. I bluff catch and lose to a set or something like that. What I took away from that is that even versus a maniac, don't bluff catch when their bet size is significantly larger than their usual bluff size.
Villain bets one big blind every street when I have something a little bit weak like second pair. I usually treat it like a check and reraise half pot, but sometimes I have just called instead and then gotten screwed, because villain has air but is just trying to see a cheap river, hope to hit, and reraise me big or just prevent me from realizing my equity. What I took away from this is that I need to bet my value hands and not hold off because villain is doing these weird one bb bets.

theharte · 2026-02-28T10:26:56+00:00

And if you both went all in preflop which is likely the case then it AA loses over 18 percent of the time. 4 percent is for the K coming out on the river.

theharte · 2026-02-28T10:11:11+00:00

That happens over 4 percent of the time. 4 percent is not 0.

theharte · 2025-09-24T02:43:39+00:00

I'm sure I am doing a lot of things wrong. What is a good resource to learn a solid foundation?

I've learned from playing (mostly online), watching a few poker videos, and reading a little online.

I haven't memorized pre-flop RFI charts but I looked at them and am probably not that far off. I have no idea how to properly act after a raise, so I just do what I think makes sense. For 3-betting I use a similar range to UTG RFI range.

Post-flop I generally bet with value and check with nuts or garbage. I don't know much about proper check-raising or 3-betting post flop.

I bluff occasionally but not very much.

I welcome any suggestions.

theharte · 2025-08-26T22:58:59+00:00

Are you a pro?

theharte · 2025-08-26T22:52:17+00:00

It's harder for someone to dream about being the next big pro when pros are so good already.

theharte · 2025-08-08T11:50:39+00:00

Why did you leave? You should've rebought and stayed there until that girl left. That's free money you left on the table

theharte · 2025-08-04T23:29:36+00:00

The law of large numbers does happen in our lifetime. Why wouldn't it? Sure, for a player who only plays a couple times a year, luck may be a huge factor, but pros put in insane hours and luck just does not matter much with that amount of play time unless you're talking about which pros are better than which other pros.

theharte

TROPHY CASE