This might be the last/second to last post for today because of the board being so slow - I'll reply to everything I see and then try again in a while.
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Have you read any poker books? If so, which ones? and which ones helped you the most?
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The ones I think you have to read, in no particular order: TOP, TPFAP, HEFAP, HoH1, SSHE, and the Theory and Practice NL book (even if you don't play limit, and even if their advice is outdated now, the limit books on this list are really helpful for poker in general). A few others are useful for thinking hands through (like HoH3) even if some of their parts are wrong or badly written, but those are the ones I think everybody should pay attention to when reading.
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What are some key concepts of poker that you know now that you wished you knew when you first started?
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This is sort of a diversion, but...
When people start out, I don't think they really need to learn how to 'play poker'. Just betting your hand, and checking when you don't have a hand, is enough to beat microstakes and even small stakes.
Everything else comes in as you naturally move up, but there's not really such a thing as a 'key concept of poker' that people need to know at, say, 25NL. At 2000NL, yeah, you'd better learn about all the fine points of river checkraising, but at lower stakes, basically anything other than checking when your hand sucks and betting when it doesn't is FPS, IMO.
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Any advice for someone who just can't seem to win?
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See above. Poker isn't a hard game at low stakes - people just make it hard because they take a bunch of things they've learned from message board posters playing 10 limits above their buyin and apply it to their own game for no reason. If you start from the ground up, and then use tricks only against people you suspect to understand poker, you'll have a bankroll long before you have to worry about any advanced moves.
This is one of the theoretical underpinnings behind me coming up with a pushbot SNG system in all of 2 hours. At the time I made it, it beat the 55's on Pacific. It probably still does.
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Any advice about bonus whoring? I am not sure if this is correct but I remember you advocating or recommending it someone?
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I don't know anything about it now, but I'm sure it's still good for a few grand to start out with, just like it always has been.
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FT of some WSOP event. You, Ansky, MLG, and Nath are there. All have equal chip stacks of 75BBs. Who wins?
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The person that gets aces when someone else four bets light [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
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Is it true that some people just "get it" and some don't?
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100%
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If you had to break these things down, in terms of how important they are to be a long-term winning player, what would the breakdown be? (yes, they're not mutually exclusive, but deal with it --- I guess just rank them or something).
- Mental discipline (i.e., tilt control and control of the gambling instinct)
- mastery of the mathematics of poker
- good poker "feel"
- solid bankroll management
- experience
- having poker buddies to discuss poker with
- hand reading
- confidence
- being ranked on p5s
- being a well-rounded poker player
- poker/work/life balance
- happiness in other aspects of life
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Hmm...tilt control and BR management are probably one and two. Hand reading probably shouldn't be in this group, because any midstakes or higher winner is gonna have that by definition, *but* if you change it to "trusting your reads" it will be way up there. Poker buddies are really important, too, because once you graduate past hand questions, AIM is how people figure out advanced play. Everything else sort of depends on the individual.
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Do you find yourself getting bored with poker ever? Honestly, is it something that challeneges/intrigues you equally, decreasingly, or increasingly over the past 4 years?
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Every time I do, I switch games. It's worked well so far, although I don't see myself going back to limit (because I don't think I understand how 50/100 is different from maniacing .50/1, so therefore I would be the fish) or SNG's (because they are the devil...I keep wanting to brush up on my final table pushbot play, but that'd require playing SNG's) ever. When in doubt, there's always HORSE and I can also always learn PLO next. Seriously...it's not rocket science, but then again, rocket science is probably way more boring than poker.
Also, winning large donkaments is awesome.
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adanthar,
you have a very different style than many of the typical winning online MTTers...both on this board, and playing in general. What do you think the biggest differences are, and why do you think you developed a different approach?
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The prevailing wisdom is that most of the really big winners in poker are LAGs, and TAGs are sort of the junior varsity squad that cleans up lower games/get eaten alive at high stakes.
This is true, and it isn't. LAGs have a few big advantages at high stakes - I won't list them all, but I think the one people don't realize is the psychological mindset of a real loose aggressive gambler playing with 100K on the table vs. a tighter guy who has the same 100K, has aces and gets raised on the turn. Suddenly, it's not that the LAG is even playing that well, it's that the TAG is giving up a big mental edge. So they adapt (which means shifting their entire viewpoint) or die, and everyone thinks that this means no TAGs can ever cut it.
That's one reason. Another reason is that most TAGs don't fold. Read SSNL - they're all trying to play ABC TAG, and every time somebody has 22 on a K72r board and 7 people have raised and reraised in a row, the forum's collective advice is that 22 is the nuts. Because TAG's play fewer hands and get less chances to get paid off, they try to push everything hard and don't develop as much hand reading. So, again, it makes a generic TAG into a minor leaguer that can clean up midstakes but doesn't cut it any higher.
When I play my best, I am something different. I'm a TAG that trusts hand reading and can make some really big laydowns, but also make some 3 street calls and big resteals. In the right spots, this makes me very dangerous. When I play bad, it turns me into a weak/tight calling station. I try not to play bad very often...it hurts my roll.
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As a lawyer, is this legal:
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_news/article/8111
Is the sky falling?
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It's sort of unsurprising given the current climate and I've no idea why they were still living in the US. This isn't about them being stockholders, it's about them founding a site with a mission statement of transferring money from the US to sportsbooks. Neteller will pull out a few months early, I guess...no permanent harm done after a couple of weeks. It's gonna stop further growth for a while, but that's about all UIGEA managed to do, too.
Still, that doesn't mean this is making me want to keep living in the States or anything.