Post: #76

I've been a big fan of Alec Torelli and his youtube channel until this came out, he always seemed like a great guy to me but this seemed pretty scummy





Thoughts?

Post: #77

(09-18-2016 06:55 PM)HighSpeed_LowDrag Wrote:  

(09-18-2016 05:22 PM)BrewDog Wrote:  So we get the deal, Texas Hold Em, and I get an Ace-Queen

I knew exactly how that story would end the second OP mentioned what hand he had.

Was not disappointed.

AQ is infamous in professional poker for leading to bust-outs in poker tournaments against AK, AA, or mid-to-high pairs.

Same with QQ. It seems like I never win shit with that hand. It seems like an A and/or a K often come on the flop, which at least makes it easy to fold.

Post: #78

In for £200 today out for £2300 12 hour grind london 1-2. My biggest win yet. Takes me to -10k in poker lifetime (last three years or so) but really beginning to feel like a decent player on 1-2 now.

Post: #79

Started playing two weeks ago. I play this Texas Hold Em 3D game on my computer, of course for virtual money. It will be a while till I start to play for real money, but even then I am not completely sure.
There are casinos in Croatia, but we don't have a culture around it so you will not see these American style of casinos here; they are more like an automat club populated with one armed jack machines (is that the name?), some roulette tables and what not.

I am thinking of free registering on one website I saw to play with real players for fake money instead and do it for some time.
This is the link: https://www.replaypoker.com/
Opinions about it?

Post: #80

(06-02-2017 06:39 PM)The Catalyst Wrote:  I've been a big fan of Alec Torelli and his youtube channel until this came out, he always seemed like a great guy to me but this seemed pretty scummy





Thoughts?

It does seem that Torelli was doing it intentionally, and while not illegal, is indeed quite scummy.

Wolf should have asked for confirmation on how much chips Torelli had.

EDIT: Actually, I don't know if it's "illegal" or if it's just one of those sportsmanship rules.

Post: #81

(06-03-2017 01:56 AM)sterling_archer Wrote:  Started playing two weeks ago. I play this Texas Hold Em 3D game on my computer, of course for virtual money. It will be a while till I start to play for real money, but even then I am not completely sure.
There are casinos in Croatia, but we don't have a culture around it so you will not see these American style of casinos here; they are more like an automat club populated with one armed jack machines (is that the name?), some roulette tables and what not.

I am thinking of free registering on one website I saw to play with real players for fake money instead and do it for some time.
This is the link: https://www.replaypoker.com/
Opinions about it?

Since you're still learning the game, I'd recommend registering on Pokerstars.eu and playing some games for play (fake) money.

You're lucky that there are so many places on the Internet to play for free. 30 years ago only way a player could learn how to play poker was going to casino and spending hundreds of $$$ to learn how to play

Post: #82

Tnx, interesting that it opens the website on our language.

Post: #83

Some questions:

- What is the minimum buy in for real money in Pokerstars?
- Do you professionally play there or in real life in casinos?
- What do you recommend regarding how long should I dabble with virtual money before attempting to play for real?
- Lastly, can one make some proper money there?

Post: #84

You can get some no deposit bonuses on some sites,you can sign through pokerstrategy.com. it is just few euros but you can get a feeling about playing with real money.
Also you can try freerolls,it is more fun than playing for virtual money.For freerolls check jackpotfreerolls.com.

Post: #85

(10-27-2016 11:38 AM)RichieP Wrote:  

(10-03-2016 07:24 PM)chicane Wrote:  I know almost nothing about poker, but I have a fairly high IQ, so it would be an interesting task to become competent. It would be cool to get good enough to come out ahead in low stakes games. Any recommendations for books to start with?

Better make sure your strengths actually match up to what it takes to succeed in poker.

Emotional intelligence? Ability to tolerate hours of endless grind? Natural penchant for strategic thinking, game theory? (I dont even know if these are what it takes, but point is - you have to find out)

High IQ is deceiving. The genius mathematician James Simons admits he failed as a computer programmer - super high IQ, but his particular strengths didn't match what's required to be a good software engineer.

He failed at that, quit, but went on to do amazingly well as a hedge fund manager. Now he's a billionaire.

Generally accurate. I know master chess players who lost their minds playing No limit but were excellent limit holdem players. Logical brains cannot understand getting punished heavily sometimes for great play. Emotional intelligence is huge. In live poker you can draw comparisons with good PUA's and good poker players. Understanding it is all about volume and knowing who you are dealing with in any given situation eg Is he a tight or loose player and what will he do in this spot.... is she DTF and do i have good logistics. Being alpha minded also helps. I have never met a women who i think is world class at poker

Post: #86

i prefer to play poker in online casinos

Post: #87

(06-04-2017 01:32 PM)sterling_archer Wrote:  Some questions:

- What is the minimum buy in for real money in Pokerstars?
- Do you professionally play there or in real life in casinos?
- What do you recommend regarding how long should I dabble with virtual money before attempting to play for real?
- Lastly, can one make some proper money there?

1. There are cash games for blinds as low as 0,01/0,02$. Usual buy-in there is 2$.
2. I mostly play at casinos.
3. When you've been winning regularly for while, switch to real money
4. Yes you can, but it requires a lot of work. Players are getting better and better, it's not year 2006 anymore.

Post: #88

(09-28-2017 11:31 AM)Gambler Wrote:  

(06-04-2017 01:32 PM)sterling_archer Wrote:  Some questions:

- What is the minimum buy in for real money in Pokerstars?
- Do you professionally play there or in real life in casinos?
- What do you recommend regarding how long should I dabble with virtual money before attempting to play for real?
- Lastly, can one make some proper money there?

1. There are cash games for blinds as low as 0,01/0,02$. Usual buy-in there is 2$.
2. I mostly play at casinos.
3. When you've been winning regularly for while, switch to real money
4. Yes you can, but it requires a lot of work. Players are getting better and better, it's not year 2006 anymore.

Correction, players have gotten better and better.

It's a waste of time getting involved in online poker now.

Post: #89

Bumping this, I'd like to hear from more rvf poker players. We should have a Poker Masterthread for all poker related discussion. There's actually a bunch of poker threads floating around.

Something playing poker has taught me over the years is the value of having good observational skills. It's also great for developing and testing your gut level instincts. I've found mine to be pretty fucking on point at the table recently.

On the point of observation; it really teaches how you need to gather intel WHILE YOU CAN. There's limited opportunity to do this and you need to take advantage of it, both at the table and in life. Pay attention to detail!

When you're sitting there in a tough pot on the turn card and are holding two pair with 3 to a flush / straight on the board...you will be wishing you had paid attention to your opponents behavior earlier in the hand / earlier in the game.

One of the great things about poker is how everything in the game can be an analogy for real life.

Post: #90

↑ ↑ This.

I've been playing live poker (low stakes NL hold-em at my local casinos) for about a year. Everything you said is true.

I'm surprised there aren't more poker players on a forum like this. I remember seeing a thread about poker on here (it might have been earlier in this thread) and there were a lot of responses saying things like "poker is gambling and gambling is bad," "gambling is for losers," etc. I was genuinely surprised. Poker is very masculine in my opinion. A lot of men have been able to make a living and even get rich from playing poker. To claim that poker is "unmasculine" or "for losers" because some people go broke is like saying that drinking whiskey is unmasculine because some people become alcoholics.

Poker is a mental competition, kind of like chess only way, way deeper and more complex. Chess is very mechanical, and has essentially been solved (i.e. a computer can be programmed to play almost perfectly). With poker (at least the no-limit and pot-limit varieties), it will take many years for a computer to be able to play perfectly.

Even if a computer was programmed to play optimally, the computer would inherently have an unfair advantage. A big part of the game is to be hard to read and not give off tells, and a computer will obviously not give off any tells.

It is often said that poker is not a game of cards, it is a game of people that is played with cards. The mathematical aspects of the game are important, but ultimately easy to learn. The difficult part of the game is being able to accurately read other people and adjust your game accordingly.

Quote:One of the great things about poker is that anything in the game can be an analogy for real life

This, 1000 times over.

Every skill you use in poker can translated over to rea life. Patience. Attention to detail. Careful analysis of situations. Reading other people. Mathematical and technical skills. Good study habits and work ethic. All those skills are valuable to have in real life.

Also, the overall mindset and attitude that you should have while playing poker (calm, analytical, unemotional) is a very good mindset to have in real life as well.

PS: I would recommend playing live instead of online. The competition ar $500 buy-in game at a live casino is generally going to be a lot softer than the competition at a $2 or $5 buy-in game online. Most people who play low to mid stakes at casinos are recreational players who are just playing for fun. On the other hand, most online players (even at the micro stakes) have a good understanding of basic poker strategy, and are tougher to beat.

Also, playing online takes the human aspect out of the game. You can't try to read someone to tell if they're bluffing or not when you can't see their face. You just have to guess.

At live games, you can really pick up on your opponents' weaknesses and exploit them. Online, you pretty much have to resort to playing "game-theory optimal," which means playing optimally based on mathematics and game theory, disregarding "tells" and "reads," and not trying to exploit your opponents' weaknesses but rather making sure you yourself are not exploitable. Basically, this means you have to play how a computer would play. It totally takes the human aspect out of the game.

Don't get me wrong, many peoplw have gotten rich playing online poker. I jusr happen to prefer live poker for the reasons stated above.

Post: #91

I used to play professionally but just bet sports these days. May head to the Aussie Millions next year as seems the juiciest tournament in the world and a great time to be in Australia.

Post: #92

Man i just ate my words today. I tried to stake jump to 200 NL and got smoked.

Post: #93

(03-07-2018 11:36 PM)Rhyme or Reason Wrote:  Man i just ate my words today. I tried to stake jump to 200 NL and got smoked.

Online or live?

Post: #94

(06-02-2017 06:39 PM)The Catalyst Wrote:  I've been a big fan of Alec Torelli and his youtube channel until this came out, he always seemed like a great guy to me but this seemed pretty scummy





Thoughts?

Torelli's response:





I'm not saying I agree with everything Torelli says, or everything Doug says. I'm just posting this so that everyone can make up their own minds.

My personal opinion is that Alec could have made a bigger effort to be fair to Dan Wolf. For example, Alec could have offered to only play the hand for the amount that Wolf thought he had, and not the chips he had hidden. In his video, Alec says something like "If Wolf wanted to play the hand for less, he should have just said so." However, this is retarded. If Wolf were to say anything like this, it would be totally obvious that he doesn't have a strong hand, and it would make it even easier for Alec to call. Also, it did seem like Alec tried to lie about where the chips were placed (before the floor guy came over).

That being said, I don't think Alec is a scumbag or did any of this on purpose. When you watch the whole video of the hand (not the edited version Doug Polk put out), you see that Alec is the only one at the table trying to be (somewhat) fair to Wolf. Despite this, and despite Alec saying he doesn't want there to be any bad blood after the hand, and Wolf agreeing to play for the full amount, Wolf goes on to attack Alec on social media over the next couple of months, while saying nothing to his face at the time of the incident. This is a bitch move in my opinion. Not to mention that it technically is Wolf's responsibility to find out how many chips Alec has before going all-in. Alec technically could have told Wolf to fuck off if he really wanted to.

Also, Doug Polk's video seems to be edited in ways that purposely try to make Alec look bad, and purposely omits footage that shows Alec trying to work out a fair deal with Wolf. Also, Polk claims that Wolf in an "amateur" even though Wolf refers to himself as a pro. In previous videos, Polk has referred to Alec as an "amateur," while in this video he refers to Alec as a seasoned pro. Polk seems to be purposely trying to make Alec look bad, either because he wants to damage Alec's reputation (they both have competing Youtube channels), or simply because having this kind of drama brings Polk's channel more views.

Post: #95

(03-07-2018 06:56 AM)Rob Banks Wrote:  ↑ ↑ This.

I've been playing live poker (low stakes NL hold-em at my local casinos) for about a year. Everything you said is true.

I'm surprised there aren't more poker players on a forum like this. I remember seeing a thread about poker on here (it might have been earlier in this thread) and there were a lot of responses saying things like "poker is gambling and gambling is bad," "gambling is for losers," etc. I was genuinely surprised. Poker is very masculine in my opinion. A lot of men have been able to make a living and even get rich from playing poker. To claim that poker is "unmasculine" or "for losers" because some people go broke is like saying that drinking whiskey is unmasculine because some people become alcoholics.

I contributed to at least one of the threads I think you are referencing. I love the game and have spent more hours playing than I'd care to admit over the past 10 years - it's just way harder to beat than you are alluding to (especially in 2018), and the amount of time/dedication/bankroll required to get good or accomplish anything resembling making a living at your local 1/2 or 2/5 game is just better invested somewhere else in my opinion.

There's nothing wrong with playing cards, just like there's nothing wrong with playing xBox or Dungeons and Dragons in moderation. Most would agree that playing several hours of video games a day is for losers. Because of the money and its extreme competitive nature, poker can trick you into thinking you are doing something better than just sitting around a table all night, getting fat and passing the time, avoiding the work that will genuinely improve your life.

If you have the rare combination of natural ability, true passion for the game, dedication, extreme patience, and the necessary bankroll/free time requirements, yes, you can certainly make it. If you are not that person, it's just important to acknowledge that you are playing for nothing more than pure entertainment. Don't call it a "side hustle" or "2nd income" or any other terms to jerk yourself off with. Monitor the time and money you are putting into it. Picking up a pizza delivery shift or going to the gym usually has a much greater EV than playing 1/2 at the casino. And we're all chasing +EV right?

Post: #96

(03-08-2018 01:00 AM)Rob Banks Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 11:36 PM)Rhyme or Reason Wrote:  Man i just ate my words today. I tried to stake jump to 200 NL and got smoked.

Online or live?

Live...i had a break even session after 6 hours at 1/2 tables, then was frustrated and slightly tilted so I said "fuck it...im gonna try my luck at 200 NL" twenty minutes later I'm leaving minus two hundred bucks.

Lesson learned, stick to where the players are shitty.

Eddie is right about a lot of what he says. It's not productive per se.

Game selection is extremely important. If you're playing low stakes you want to play on the nights when people are drinking (friday/saturday). I work 2 bartender jobs and I get 4-5 days of work per week, so i like to go in on my off days sometimes and try to grind out a little extra cash. It was actually going well until yesterday, lol.

Post: #97

Long time forum member and long term winner at 1/2, 1/3, and 2/5 live NL. I have thousands of hours logged at these stakes for a win rate of between 7-10 BB/hr in various locations. I used to play extensively as a side gig. I have done other types of gambling in my life a grand total of less than 5 times. I've played blackjack once ever, have put less than $100 dollars in a slot machine lifetime, never touched another table game, don't drink while I play, etc. etc.

Now on to my somewhat blackpilled post...

For a while now I have completely quit the game and I want to write this post to give some hindsight thoughts on it. I know a lot of younger guys read the forum and have delusions especially when it comes to certain lifestyles. The Dan Bilzerian worship among young men I find especially disturbing these days.

It is my firm belief that 99% of people would be better off if they never took up poker (online or live) or stepped foot inside of a casino.

Keep in mind that the huge majority of players are losing players. Barry Greenstein wrote somewhere that only 3% of poker players are long term winners. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but it seems about right to me.

The gaming industry does a good job to convince you that glamour and riches await you. I thought that I was smarter just because I played poker. "Every other game is a sucker game" I thought. In a way I was right, but what I didn't realize that even if I could win long term at the table I was putting myself in an unhealthy and vastly negative environment.

The biggest thing that happens when you play often is that your existence becomes completely focused around money without accomplishing very much...this leads to a very unfulfilling life. For someone to win, someone else has to lose. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people just dump money at the table, and these aren't millionaires either. Some guy who just dumped a few grand a few minutes before was talking about working two jobs to support his wife and kids. Clearly there's a problem there.

Look at the pros and how many have gone broke over and over again. Or they just gamble on everything. Even the great Phil Ivey would play craps and other games for millions. TJ Cloutier is another guy in the hole for millions in craps.

To the posters who say poker teaches you certain skills, I guess but I'd argue you could learn these skills doing something else like starting a business.

Some of you may think that this doesn't apply to you. Maybe you don't play that often or whatever. That's fine. I'm just here to tell you that that there are more worthwhile endeavors in life and to be careful.

If I had a time machine I'd donate the money I earned and replace the time spent at the table with say volunteering at a convalescent home or church. That's how strongly I feel about how much time I've wasted at the table.

Post: #98

Quote:For someone to win, someone else has to lose.

So what? I don't think anyone who plays cards is under the impression they are changing the world for the better. Every one who sits down at a table knows exactly what they are getting into these days. It's not like that scene from St. Bilko...

This argument could be applied to almost anything..."any time you swoop a girl at a bar, some guy is going home to jerk himself off..." ect.

Quote:Some guy who just dumped a few grand a few minutes before was talking about working two jobs to support his wife and kids. Clearly there's a problem there.

Take that guy out of the card room and he will more than likely be blowing money and/or doing other stupid shit to fuck himself over. People like this will find ways to self destruct, and I find the moralizing about gambling to be trite and boring.

Quote:To the posters who say poker teaches you certain skills, I guess but I'd argue you could learn these skills doing something else like starting a business.

Where I gave specific examples of these lessons, you did not. I think one of the reasons poker is so popular and fun is because of the fact that it's analogous to life in many ways. Bluffing, putting reads on people, gambling...we all do this every day in our normal lives whether we realize it or not.

You can call me cynical and I won't argue with that. And for the record I agree that it is, in the big picture, unproductive.

Quote:The Dan Bilzerian worship among young men I find especially disturbing these days

As an aside, I don't think anyone actually believes Dan won his money from playing poker. The reason people worship him is because of his Instagram activity, of which poker is hardly featured, from what I understand.

Post: #99

I'd argue that any form of gambling (even poker) is more dangerous than other unhealthy addictions/hobbies (except maybe drug abuse)

I don't think people really understand what they are getting into. When you're younger/in college it can seem like good money doing something you enjoy and it's true that you can't be fired, you can pick your own hours, and you're not 'working for the man' but the seedy and degenerate elements of the game and lifestyle seem to get glossed over. I never fell into that trap. I didn't play beyond my bankroll, never went bust, or participated in other activities, but just being in that environment for so many hours wears on you. You see the worst of human nature unfold in front of you on a daily basis.

I'd say logic, observation, and recall are some skills you can sharpen at the poker table. But you can practice those in regular life or with other games (chess for example)

As far as getting reads, at the table things are different because people are constantly trying to fool you and act in a manner differently than they regularly do. This occurs in day to day life as well, but not to such an extent. You don't need to be a poker player to figure out the girl with the angel persona is really very promiscuous, just experience in the game.

People have to make their own choices, I'm just stating things that you only come to realize after a while at the tables. There may be certain people in the world (George Soros financial types) who would do perfectly playing lots and lots of poker. For me it became a very empty and unfulfilling hobby.

Post: #100

Im thinking about putting the time in to learn how to play poker online. It seems like a good way to make a little money and I've always thought it would be cool to know how to play when I have more money for fun,meeting characters,etc.

1.do you have to take things to quant analyst levels and "grind" for hours per day with 3 monitors just to turn a mild profit that would cover shit like bottles and an electric bill?

2.Tips for preventing becoming a degenerate gambler? Ill admit i have a fairly addictive personality.
..that word "grind" brings me back to days of playing a click based monotous video game called runescape non stop when I was really young. Now im older realize that weakness and have varied interests that get me outside more but with poker I could see myself getting super into all the info thats out there and becoming a little bit to into the game (obviously good for learning but overdone can become bad)

3.Life/strategy/mathematics skill benefits? Will learning how to become emotionless with money from poker make you a better investor? Will it make me motivated to brush up on and become better at math?