moving up

[fuzz66]

southeastern conn.

[DougL]

Kurt,

This is an amazing, well thought post. I have some friends I'm going to point to this one. This is by far the best post I've read all night.

[8Mile]

[ QUOTE ]
i doubled what i had in about 4 hours.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have only had the patience to read about 1/4 of this thread. So, sorry if this has already been commented on, but, if you think that 4-hour results reflect anything other than luck, you're utterly clueless. Go to your nearest community college and take an introductory statistics class. Then apply the concepts of expectation and variance to poker.

Jay

[Borknagar]

[ QUOTE ]
my reasoning for moving up in limits is that it seems that i win smaller pots against better players and lose bigger pots against weak players.i truly believe if i played against better players during my last break session,although i probably would have had a losing session,i would not have gone broke, maybe even won a little.im i wrong for thinking this?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you´re right. Ask Phil Ivey or any other better player to play with you. You probable have a bigger chance of winning then against bad players.

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you´re right. Ask Phil Ivey or any other better player to play with you. You probable have a bigger chance of winning then against bad players.

[/ QUOTE ]

I watched Ivey play some heads up LHE the other night. He is such a luckbox. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[fuzz66]

any suggested reading on varience and expectation.the books i have do not get into these topics that much. 3 things ive learned on this thead 1:the importance of a proper starting bankroll.2: a better understanding of varience[hence the need for a proper bankroll].3: luck plays a bigger role in this game more than i realize, but over the long run, better players will overcome the luck factor. because i strictly play live now, i cannot post any recent hands without being vague on the specifics. does anyone have any advice on keeping hand stats playing live?

[jjshabado]

[ QUOTE ]
because i strictly play live now, i cannot post any recent hands without being vague on the specifics.

[/ QUOTE ]

*cough* copout *cough*

Sorry, something was in my throat.

1. Nobody expects a live hand post to look as nice as a converted online hand.

2. You don't need specifics. When I'm talking to friends about hands that happened live, I frequently say things like "there were 3 or 4 limpers in the hand", "I was in mid-late position", "an un-important card came on the turn", "it was a medium pot", etc. Focus on the important details, the rest doesn't matter that much.

3. If you can't even remember that much, make it your goal to get one hand from every session. When a good hand to post about comes up, write it down. There should be at least one hand in the next 3 or 4 that you fold preflop that will give you a minute to jot down the important details. If you feel like an idiot doing it at the table, get up and do it. But write it down.

4. Respond to other people's hands. If you can't even do any of those 2 things reply to other people's hands. Note, that this is nowhere near as good as posting your own.

5. Make up a hand, and talk about how you would play it. If you little to no imagination grab a deck of cards deal yourself two, pick a scenario (you're in late position, UTG raised, two people called, what do you do? sorta thing) and then deal a flop/turn/river deciding what you'd do at each point.

There, now you have lots of options.

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
any suggested reading on varience and expectation

[/ QUOTE ]

Most books I've read at least touch on the subject, but I don't know of any off the top of my head which deal exclusively with variance and expectations. Maybe "Zen and the Art of Poker" by Phillips, which is based more on ways to handle such things mentally.

Seriously, though, browsing through the Beats, Brags, and Variance forum on here should at least give you an idea of what you can expect. And prepare you for the worst.

[chesspain]

[ QUOTE ]
for whatever its worth, i also agree with everything dave and eagle said. i find it a little disheartening that luck plays much more of a factor than skill.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then learn to play chess.

[spex x]

[ QUOTE ]
Forget about 20-40 or even 10-20 until you have 400 big bets at those levels.
You can be the best player in the world but if you can't manage your bankroll properly you WILL go bust.

[/ QUOTE ]

You've got to understand that the variance is HIGHER the higher you play. 10/20 has much more variance than 4/8. The reason is that the 4/8 game is probably about 60-70% fish who are very beatable and the rest solid players who are also beatable. The 10/20 probably has about 30% fish who are somewhat beatable, and the rest are solid players and experts who you will lose to. The 20/40 game probably has about 10-15% fish and the rest are experts. In the higher limits you'll be paying off better hands more and getting paid off with strong hands less. You've got to be able to manipulate those guys in order to win. 4/8 tactics won't work.

Also, the higher you play, the lower your BB/100 is expected. A 10/20 player might make 1bb/100, but a 20/40 player might make .75 bb/100 or less. Why? Because they are playing against better players who aren't going to easily give up additional bets.

What are you reading? While a book like "Hold'em Poker for advanced players" might help your game, "Small Stakes Hold'em" is more appropriate. The tactics in middle limit poker don't apply a lot of the time to our SS games. Be careful that the books you're reading are not geared toward the ML players.