Post: #1

Just curious because I used to play online for money. I was doing the micro stakes and I taught myself how to be a profitable player. It is definitely a grind but I found that poker forced me to control my emotions and think more methodically.

It feels ok to make an honest buck. But taking some chumps money especially when you have nothing feels amazing.

Then the DOJ shut it all down for US players several years back. I know you can still play online but I was also thinking of taking a trip to a nearby casino to see if I could make some money at their poker tables.

No limit Hold em is my game.

Post: #2

Personally i think the better money is in live, limit hold em. Find a local casino or card room with it. Friday and saturday night are the best. Drunk donkeys everywhere. Limit hold em is the only game I'm consistently ahead moneywise.

Post: #3

(04-12-2017 07:14 AM)Jameson Ranger Wrote:  Personally i think the better money is in live, limit hold em. Find a local casino or card room with it. Friday and saturday night are the best. Drunk donkeys everywhere. Limit hold em is the only game I'm consistently ahead moneywise.

Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely check out the limit tables when I go live. Still think I'm gonna throw about 300$ down online play with that.also.

Post: #4

There is no greater teacher about life than No Limit Holdem, so much of the lessons I learned trying to master the game have helped me in real life. Emotional control being a key one.

Post: #5

Live is definitely the way to go. It's also a social event, and a great way to network and meet people.

If you are playing limit and are serious about treating it as income, I would not waste my time with anything less than $10/$20. Otherwise, its not a side hustle - it's just a way to pass the time. No better than playing Dungeons and Dragons. You'd better be a legitimate winning player and you better have a bank roll of several thousand dollars.

There is definitely significant money to be made playing 1/2 and/or 1/3 NL live. Again, you need to be confident that you are a winning player and should have a bankroll of absolute bare bones minimum of $2K. If you lose $500 in a night, you can't be upset or tilt off the rest of your money. If you get upset or panicked by the loss, you can't afford to play and should just get a side job delivering pizza or something similar (I do this as well - no shame in that and its probably a better, faster way to make real money).

Post: #6

(04-12-2017 09:08 AM)Eddie Winslow Wrote:  If you get upset or panicked by the loss, you can't afford to play and should just get a side job delivering pizza or something similar (I do this as well - no shame in that and its probably a better, faster way to make real money).

Are you saying that delivering pizza would offer a better hourly rate than the stakes you mentioned at live?

I was planning on taking 1k originally with me down to Tunica. That 1k I would consider as already spent when I take my bankroll. If you say 2k min, then I'll wait till I can blow 3k on it.

Also what advice would you give me never having played live at a casino, only online?

Post: #7

(04-12-2017 09:50 AM)Jack Ronin Wrote:  

(04-12-2017 09:08 AM)Eddie Winslow Wrote:  If you get upset or panicked by the loss, you can't afford to play and should just get a side job delivering pizza or something similar (I do this as well - no shame in that and its probably a better, faster way to make real money).

Are you saying that delivering pizza would offer a better hourly rate than the stakes you mentioned at live?

I was planning on taking 1k originally with me down to Tunica. That 1k I would consider as already spent when I take my bankroll. If you say 2k min, then I'll wait till I can blow 3k on it.

Also what advice would you give me never having played live at a casino, only online?

Obviously win rate is completely dependent on the player. My winrate only began to explode after I took it super seriously, like an actual job. It's still fun of course, but I don't fuck around like I used to. I've studied the game like a mad man for 8+ years and lost a lot of money trying to learn. Now, I'm probably averaging around 10BB/hr at 1/2 and 1/3 and hoping to move up to 2/5 by the end of 2017.

Differences:

-The players are looser preflop and bad after the flop, sometimes incredibly bad.
-Stakes are obviously wayyyy higher than microstakes online. You will feel the difference from .05/.10 the first hand you play.
-The game is alot slower, so patience is even more important than online, when you can play 4+ tables at a time and auto-fold shit hands.

Advice:

-Get there super early on Saturday or Sunday. I like to get a good nights sleep, and then get to the card room before 6-7am if possible. In the NL games, stacks are MASSIVE from the guys who stayed up all night playing. Everyone still there is either exhausted, drunk, high, or some combination of the three, and the game is amazingly loose. Drunk players + Massive stacks = good news for you.

-Don't play in games where everyone is super tight. It's almost not worth it as you can only make good money when players play a lot of hands and play them poorly.

-If one player is truly awful (first time playing poker kind of bad) you can clean them out pretty quickly with isolation or other exploitable plays. Other players will know exactly what you are doing and it doesn't matter because...

-They are under bankrolled and scared to get too out of line with you. You have $3k dedicated strictly to poker, so losing $50 on a hand barely makes your flinch. It's scary when an aggressive guy is betting and raising constantly and you know you will have to leave the casino once you lose the $200 in front of you. Having a large bankroll compared to the limits you are playing is the most important lesson I've learned. The rich get richer.

Post: #8

(04-12-2017 09:50 AM)Jack Ronin Wrote:  I was planning on taking 1k originally with me down to Tunica. That 1k I would consider as already spent when I take my bankroll. If you say 2k min, then I'll wait till I can blow 3k on it.

Also what advice would you give me never having played live at a casino, only online?

Jack, I've spent many hours in Tunica. Nice casinos.

You'll find that playing online is much easier. I was angry at GWB for banning some goddamn partypoker when I wasn't hurting anyone by spending my own money to play poker.

But it gets a bit more difficult when playing with real casino people. They can now see you. And that makes a huge difference in the game. You can't bluff as well in front of real poker players. As much as you think you may have no "tell", if you sit at a poker table long enough, they'll find your tell.

Here's what's fun as shit about live poker, though... When you first sit down, no one knows you or anything about you. They don't know if you're winning because you're just fucking noob lucky or if you're a shark. And if you bust a few of them on a large pot, it will make them lose their minds.

So, if I may recommend... Act like you've never played before in your life. Most of the players are just fucking around and having a good time. They bring $100 to the table for entertainment. And those people are cool. They will help you.

The people that are dicks are the ones that do it for a living and when you take their stack, they're fucking PISSED. And that shit is funny to take their chips when they're the pros.

But unless you're pro, always treat poker this way... It's a game; it's entertainment. Decide how much you can lose to be happy with the fact that you got a night's worth of entertainment. If that's $100 bucks, then if you lose a $100 then fuck it. You already knew you might be parted with that money. But if you win, it's all gravy.

Leave your ATM card in the car. There's a reason the casinos give you free drinks. Those drinks aren't as free as you might think.

Post: #9

If you have taken the time out to get good at poker, and are willing to put the time into learning, and can remove emotions and stick to amounts of risk:reward - trading of financial instruments might be of interest to you also.

Don't let anybody ever tell you it's easy because it isn't. I lost a few tens of thousands (that I could afford to) over the space of a couple of years until I was able to make good consistent short term decisions I also spent time before that reading books talking about strategies that were basically nonsense and subjective. You need to spend the time learning the feel for things and spend many hours and days watching the markets without trading.

If you go down that route, my best piece of advice would be to expect the unexpected. This was one of my major downfalls - for example leading up to the subprime mortgage crisis around 2008 I saw the FDAX futures that I traded regularly, making a very clean head and shoulders pattern that indicated a major move down. I didn't believe what I saw coming up because it would imply the world was badly messed up, an event that had not happened, and so I didn't make any long term trade based on it.

Then some days later the real world events to trigger such a move came out in public, and it all played out - with me sitting on the sidelines because I didn't believe it could happen. During that period the spread on FDAX was huge and very high risk because it was bouncing everywhere!

Learned the lesson from that anyway.

Post: #10

I was a live semi-pro for 2 years as I mentioned in another thread. Averaged around $40/hr those two years at 1/2 uncapped game which played big and deep (don't get me wrong, I think I ran above expectation for those 2 years.)

In general, reasonable winrates for solid players at a normal 2/5 NL game are probably $20-40 or even $50 if you are crushing.

At 5/10 NL you can probably get up somewhere between $50 and $90-100/hr for the very best players.

If you can beat online, you can beat live for sure. Most live players have not studied the game away from the table and do not understand many fundamental concepts of the game. They play on "feel" instead of logic and math, which can work at times but is not a winning strategy in the long run.

Live is just slower and people are much less agressive, people like to see a lot of flops when they shouldn't, etc. Do NOT try to bluff the flsh. There are so many calling stations in live poker it's not even funny. Just wait for solid hands and make sure to get max value. This means value-betting hands like 2nd pair at times or top pair good kicker more than one street.

Just play tight and aggressive at most tables and you will be fine. Make sure to raise large preflop since these guys typically are calling regardless of your image, they just wanna see a flop like I said before.

The biggest edge against the typical live fish/degenerate comes when the stacks are deep (>100 BB). These guys will often call all ins on flush draws when they are not getting the right odds and will stack off with overpairs when they shouldn't be.

As a side hustle poker makes a lot of sense, since your job will cushion any potential downstreaks you have. Relying on JUST poker for a period of time is a recipe for stress and potential disaster, however, as all it takes is one bad run and then you're screwed.

Post: #11

(04-12-2017 04:05 PM)account844 Wrote:  If you have taken the time out to get good at poker, and are willing to put the time into learning, and can remove emotions and stick to amounts of risk:reward - trading of financial instruments might be of interest to you also.

Don't let anybody ever tell you it's easy because it isn't. I lost a few tens of thousands (that I could afford to) over the space of a couple of years until I was able to make good consistent short term decisions I also spent time before that reading books talking about strategies that were basically nonsense and subjective. You need to spend the time learning the feel for things and spend many hours and days watching the markets without trading.

If you go down that route, my best piece of advice would be to expect the unexpected. This was one of my major downfalls - for example leading up to the subprime mortgage crisis around 2008 I saw the FDAX futures that I traded regularly, making a very clean head and shoulders pattern that indicated a major move down. I didn't believe what I saw coming up because it would imply the world was badly messed up, an event that had not happened, and so I didn't make any long term trade based on it.

Then some days later the real world events to trigger such a move came out in public, and it all played out - with me sitting on the sidelines because I didn't believe it could happen. During that period the spread on FDAX was huge and very high risk because it was bouncing everywhere!

Learned the lesson from that anyway.

Thanks. I've considered the stock market as well. I dabbled in forex many years ago.

Post: #12

(04-12-2017 04:32 PM)rungoodinc Wrote:  I was a live semi-pro for 2 years as I mentioned in another thread. Averaged around $40/hr those two years at 1/2 uncapped game which played big and deep (don't get me wrong, I think I ran above expectation for those 2 years.)

In general, reasonable winrates for solid players at a normal 2/5 NL game are probably $20-40 or even $50 if you are crushing.

At 5/10 NL you can probably get up somewhere between $50 and $90-100/hr for the very best players.

If you can beat online, you can beat live for sure. Most live players have not studied the game away from the table and do not understand many fundamental concepts of the game. They play on "feel" instead of logic and math, which can work at times but is not a winning strategy in the long run.

Live is just slower and people are much less agressive, people like to see a lot of flops when they shouldn't, etc. Do NOT try to bluff the flsh. There are so many calling stations in live poker it's not even funny. Just wait for solid hands and make sure to get max value. This means value-betting hands like 2nd pair at times or top pair good kicker more than one street.

Just play tight and aggressive at most tables and you will be fine. Make sure to raise large preflop since these guys typically are calling regardless of your image, they just wanna see a flop like I said before.

The biggest edge against the typical live fish/degenerate comes when the stacks are deep (>100 BB). These guys will often call all ins on flush draws when they are not getting the right odds and will stack off with overpairs when they shouldn't be.

As a side hustle poker makes a lot of sense, since your job will cushion any potential downstreaks you have. Relying on JUST poker for a period of time is a recipe for stress and potential disaster, however, as all it takes is one bad run and then you're screwed.

Thanks for thr advice! Much of what you say confirms what I was thinking. I figured just solid TAG poker playing would be the way to go. Any money that I put towards poker I view it as play money anyway.

Post: #13

(04-12-2017 03:43 PM)BrewDog Wrote:  

(04-12-2017 09:50 AM)Jack Ronin Wrote:  I was planning on taking 1k originally with me down to Tunica. That 1k I would consider as already spent when I take my bankroll. If you say 2k min, then I'll wait till I can blow 3k on it.

Also what advice would you give me never having played live at a casino, only online?

Jack, I've spent many hours in Tunica. Nice casinos.

You'll find that playing online is much easier. I was angry at GWB for banning some goddamn partypoker when I wasn't hurting anyone by spending my own money to play poker.

But it gets a bit more difficult when playing with real casino people. They can now see you. And that makes a huge difference in the game. You can't bluff as well in front of real poker players. As much as you think you may have no "tell", if you sit at a poker table long enough, they'll find your tell.

Here's what's fun as shit about live poker, though... When you first sit down, no one knows you or anything about you. They don't know if you're winning because you're just fucking noob lucky or if you're a shark. And if you bust a few of them on a large pot, it will make them lose their minds.

So, if I may recommend... Act like you've never played before in your life. Most of the players are just fucking around and having a good time. They bring $100 to the table for entertainment. And those people are cool. They will help you.

The people that are dicks are the ones that do it for a living and when you take their stack, they're fucking PISSED. And that shit is funny to take their chips when they're the pros.

But unless you're pro, always treat poker this way... It's a game; it's entertainment. Decide how much you can lose to be happy with the fact that you got a night's worth of entertainment. If that's $100 bucks, then if you lose a $100 then fuck it. You already knew you might be parted with that money. But if you win, it's all gravy.

Leave your ATM card in the car. There's a reason the casinos give you free drinks. Those drinks aren't as free as you might think.

I appreciate the solid advice. I treat all the money I bring in poker as if it's already gone.; So no attachment there. Im excited to give this a shot sometime soon. I may go down on like a Thursday and possibly stay till Saturday just to find out what I'm capable of at live.

I will be treating it like any other hustle.

Post: #14

Quote: Thanks for thr advice! Much of what you say confirms what I was thinking. I figured just solid TAG poker playing would be the way to go. Any money that I put towards poker I view it as play money anyway.

You're welcome. The only downside of poker is that you're always working on a hourly basis and there is no "passive income" aspect to the $ you earn. The upside is that you're making $ playing a game.

I see myself continuing live poker as a side hustle for a long time since I enjoy the social aspect of the game and it allows me to channel my degenerate gambling streak into a net positive.

Now if only I could lay off the sports betting...lol

Post: #15

Been a poker pro for a few years now. Money is better than most jobs but it absolutely is a grind. Players at the 2/5 stakes and higher live are getting too good to be No Limit Hold Em professionals. Games every year in Vegas get tougher and tougher. If you really want to be a professional poker player I suggest learning online before crushing the live games at low stakes.

Omaha is the future though, but you would need a large bankroll to play it. I am transitioning to Pot Limit Omaha the last few months.

You can expect to make more than a job though, if you have some aptitude.

Post: #16

(04-13-2017 12:40 AM)RustyShackleford Wrote:  Games every year in Vegas get tougher and tougher

LA poker action >>> Vegas poker action

The huge cardrooms and local degens/gamblers keep the games live.

Post: #17

Been playing poker now for 15 plus years, just like you said as a side hustle. This might sound counter intuitive but my tip is to go straight to 2/5 or 5/10 if you are a winning player online and have the proper bankroll.

Live poker at 1/2 is closer to bingo. Not that the skill level at 2/5 is substantially better but what you'll notice is that most players at those stakes are at least aware of the key fundamentals of the game. For me personally it makes the game less swingy which to me is better to grind as a side hustle.

You're less likely to get seven callers to a 8X UTG preflop raise then have some donk go runner runner straight with no odds to call because their poker logic is 'the pot is too big for me to fold'.

At 1/2 the effectiveness of bluffing is greatly reduced. It's also harder to rep a range since most don't play ranges but rather their hole cards.

Biggest detriment is you need a larger bankroll relative to the buyin since 1/2 tends to be a higher variance game. I wouldn't even bother if you don't have at least 30 times the max buyin. However for 2/5 you can make a serious run and play properly with 10X max buyin.

Post: #18

great information gentlemen, what would be a good place to practice playing online, preferably for free?

Post: #19

I can attest to the claim that poker can be great for your emotional control. To this day, I credit NL Holdem for my mental toughness. Nothing gets to me anymore.

I started playing online at 14 years old and made over $60k by the time I graduated highschool. In college I was winning and losing over $50k every single day. In the end, the money didnt change my life at all, but the lessons about emotional control sure did.

Nowadays I dont think poker is a great choice for people looking to make a buck. Online poker is virtually solved. The game *basically* boils down to solving quick math problems and computers will crush humans in that regard. You can still make money playing live poker - even comparible to a good job if you are skilled enough - but a live poker career will be so draining on your physical and mental well-being that I don't think it's worth it.

If you want to play poker as a hobby and make a few grand a year that's great and attainable.

Post: #20

I've known how to play no-limit hold 'em since I was 15, but just recently got good and started going to casinos.

I totally agree with everyone who said that poker teaches/helps you with real life. Most real-life situations can be interpreted using poker as a metaphor. In real life, you need to know how to read people, know when to "fold," "call," "raise," which "hands" to play and which ones not to play, etc.

Poker is obviously not as complex as real life, and obviously it is not a perfect metaphor, but my point stands nonetheless.

I am currently living in South America, and the players there at the low stakes (which is all they have) are pretty bad. At least most of them are bad enough to where I am able to play profitably.

I started with just about $200, and within about 3 weeks I was up to $2000. Then I had a few bad days and went on "tilt" for the next few days and ended up losing the whole $2000. I borrowed a few hundred from a friend back in the U.S. and quickly made back my $2000 (I lost $500 of it back the next day, most of it to some American dude, but whatever).

I came back to the U.S. for a visit these last few weeks. I spent a couple of days in Atlantic City and made just under $350 playing the $1/$2 tables.

People who are not familiar with poker seem to think it is just like any other gambling game (i.e. the house always has the advantage, and you will always lose in the long run). However, in poker, you are playing against the other players at the table, not the house. The house makes money by taking a rake (a percentage of each pot that is played). This means that if you are a good player, you can make money.

There are people at the casinos, both in the U.S. and South America (although more so in SA) who are not that good at poker, and just see it as another gambling game. They go to the casino, play a little blackjack, a little roulette, and a little poker, etc. They are usually pretty easy to beat, since they are not serious poker players and just want to gamble.

I agree that live poker is more profitable (for good players) than online poker. It is easier for me to win money at the live tables than it is at the PENNY TABLES online. I think this is because online poker tends to attract serious players, while casinos tend to attract a mix of serious players, casual players, and degenerate gamblers. Also, you can't read people in online poker, so you're mostly relying on math and odds.

(04-14-2017 02:32 PM)MX90 Wrote:  Been playing poker now for 15 plus years, just like you said as a side hustle. This might sound counter intuitive but my tip is to go straight to 2/5 or 5/10 if you are a winning player online and have the proper bankroll.

Live poker at 1/2 is closer to bingo. Not that the skill level at 2/5 is substantially better but what you'll notice is that most players at those stakes are at least aware of the key fundamentals of the game. For me personally it makes the game less swingy which to me is better to grind as a side hustle.

Not sure I agree with this. If people at $1/$2 are playing like this, that means they are bad players and easier to win money off of (in the long run). Yes, the swings will be bigger, but you'll come out on top if you're a good player. Why wouldn't you want to play agains players who don't know the fundamentals? Sure, it can be less fun and less challenging than playing against better players, but it will be easier to make money.

You just have to play super tight pre-flop, and then play very aggressively post-flop if you think you have the best hand. Only bluff if you're SURE no one has anything. Avoid bluffing out of position, and avoid trying to catch people bluffing, as 90% of the time they won't be bluffing.

If you have a maniac at the table raising to $25 pre-flop every single hand, then you just need to sit and wait for a premium staring hand hand (or even a hand like AQ or AJ or a medium pocket pair) and re-raise him.


You're less likely to get seven callers to a 8X UTG preflop raise then have some donk go runner runner straight with no odds to call because their poker logic is 'the pot is too big for me to fold'.
[/quote]

I noticed this too at the low-stakes tables. People simply will not fold their draws. The strategy here is to bet big enough that your opponent is not getting the right odds to call. The goal isn't to get him to fold. The goal is to get him to call with bad odds (i.e. he will be losing money to you in the long run by calling). Sure, the 30-35% of the time he hits his draw, you will lose money, but the 65-70% of the time he misses, you win money.

The goal is to make it so that you win as much as possible when he misses his draws, and lose as little as possible when he hits his draws. Some people at the casino I played at would do retarded things like going all-in with just a flush draw (or straight draw). Am I mad about this? Of course not. I will call that all-in bet every single time, and I will usually win, which means it is profitable for me to call in the long run.

You want your opponents to pay to draw to their hands. You don't want to give a free card to someone you think might be on a draw.


At 1/2 the effectiveness of bluffing is greatly reduced. It's also harder to rep a range since most don't play ranges but rather their hole cards.
[/quote]

Not exactly true. A lot of times, people will make it obvious that they have a shitty hand (or a medium-strength hand, for that matter) because they check a couple of times in a row, and they have a bored/annoyed look on their face like they just want the hand to be over so that they can play a new hand. If there is a lot of money in the pot and you are fairly confident no one has a good hand, go ahead and bluff. They will fold (assuming you were right about them not having a good hand).

It is best, in these types of games, to avoid bluffing when you're out of position, because you never know if the guy behind you just hit something. People tend to play a lot of trash hands in these types of games, so literally any card that comes out can possibly make someone a good hand.

Post: #21

(04-14-2017 04:27 PM)almast Wrote:  great information gentlemen, what would be a good place to practice playing online, preferably for free?

You can't practice by playing online for free. I mean, you technically
can play for "play money" (i.e. for free) online, but you won't get any practice that will help you get any better. If anything, it will make you worse. The reason for this is that people play a lot differently when they are not risking any money. How seriously would you take a poker game in which you do not stand to win or lose any money whatsoever?

By playing in these "play money" games, you will get used to the way people play there, and you will be in for a surprise when you start playing real money games and realize that your opponents are playing way differently (and way better) than they were in the free game. Even if you play $0.01/$0.02 (which means the maximum buy-in is $2), people will still be trying very hard to win. Even if the game is only for $2, nobody wants to lose their money

If you want to practice without risking a lot of money, I would recommend you deposit a little money (whatever the minimum deposit is) onto an online poker site and simply playing the lowest stakes they offer (usually $0.01/$0.02 or $0.02/$0.04.

If you're outside the U.S., I would recomment PokerStars. They offer $0.01/$0.02 games, and the rake at that level is lower than it is on other sites, such as 888poker.

If you really don't want to risk any money at all, then I don't know what to tell you. Playing poker without money/betting is like playing tennis without rackets, or no-contact boxing.

Post: #22

I am planning on registering to PokerStars.eu soon. So your advice is to practice with these very low stakes games that are in cents, than proceed to those in 1$ and more?

Post: #23

I dropped out of university to play poker full time but unless you're an autistic genius there's far more money in sports betting imo.

Post: #24

Played online for a living for many years and still do, although im spending alot of time building passive income now.

There are very good sites with instructional videos, most are quite expensive($100/month i think) but im sure there are trials and such.
http://www.deucescracked.com/ and https://www.cardrunners.com/ was the biggest ones when i studied alot, but that was a couple of years ago so things might have changed. I dont think there is a faster way for learning than watching videos there and playing at the same time applying what you learn. Thats how i went from a break even player to being able to play for a living in a short time. With that said, online is tough now, very tough.

Discipline and patience is very important. There is a book by Jared Tendler called The mental game of poker that is very good. Being a good poker player is probably as much away from the tables as on the tables. Meditation helps alot.

On the tables, learning the power of position is important, this took me a long time. As reference, in early position im very tight, raising maybe 10% of hands. On dealer position if no one raised i will raise more than 50% of hands.

Also valuebet, valuebet and valuebet. Players at low stakes call way too much and you dont have to worry much about getting reraised as a bluff.

Post: #25

I have to say I admire you guys who are legit making bank playing online in this day and age. It was so much easier 15 years ago, a joke really, could have made some money then if I took it seriously. These days, sharks everywhere, software, collusion... I only play for tiny amounts now, just to relax.

Also don't like the vibe in European casinos that much. Played in a tournament in Ostrava (Czech Republic) recently and it was like a funeral with all these semi-pros coming over from Poland. Take the drinks, fun and jokes out of live poker and it's really just a bunch of assholes trying to take each other's money.