Why do I suck at online Hold Em?

[Bantam222]

[ QUOTE ]
Its harder to win when you aren't good.



[/ QUOTE ]
haha

[Machinehead]

[ QUOTE ]
If you want to get better, keep a journal, every time you lose a hand, you remember what the other guy's showdown hand was and how he played the hand preflop and postflop and then make note of how you could have played YOUR hand to turn the outcome into a desirable one.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is being results oriented. You can often play a hand perfectly and still lose.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
HOWEVER - "knowing" you can win is different then actually proving to yourself that what you are thinking is correct.

Knowing the correct way to play poker is not the same as being able to handle your bankroll and not go on a mammoth tilt after not being dealt a hand to play for 500 hands.

A person can win at poker but that does not mean is a winning poker player in the long run as bankroll management comes into play.

did that make ANY sense?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

However part of 'knowing' is also knowing how to manage your BR, not just playing the hands. The game isn't just about chips and cards. However, it's less of a factor with a replenishable BR. ie...day job. But even then, some play above what a day job can supplement.

The thing about 'you really don't KNOW' is psychological. This is where part of 'believing' in the long run comes in(assuming you 'are' playing a winning game). Getting beat after beat after beat while taking the best of it, you have to buy in that it will eventually work itself out. The numbers prove it. It's just a matter of it turning around*.

So, yes, winning poker isn't just playing 'correct' poker a few times, then changing it up because you're running bad so now you don't raise AA with 5 limpers to you because you're afraid of losing again. Yes, that's also part of it.

This is why it's easy to talk about bad swings, but until you realy go through it, you don't really know just how it can affect you.

But if you're watching your opponents make mistake after mistake, mistakes you're not making, mistakes you can actually figure an amount they're losing per hour doing it, then it's just a matter of time when it catches up to them. Some repeated mistakes can take longer to catch up. But if you can recognize the gap in knowing the concepts, you're that much more ahead of your opponents. Then it's just a matter of being ahead enough to beat the rake.

If you can justify, with solid theory behind it, every move you make and why you make it, whether it's +/- EV, you know it. In the old days, many of us old gaurd talked about a 'clicking' that sort of happened. We didn't have PT for stats, or even online games.

*I like to use casino's pit games as examples(primarily because I see alot of playing as prop bets within the hand itself). Is anyone telling a casino that they might not be winning at craps because someone is on a huge, hot roll? Do they change the way they play to compensate? No. Because there is no psychological crap to deal with. It's been mathematically proven. They know that if someone repeatedly puts their money in with the worst of it they'll lose. In relation, many poker players would adjust their game. ie...The AA example above.

Make sense?

b

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
The problem arises in that many people who are less studied, less well-read, less experienced, and/or less immersed in the culture will take all sorts of random things, usually very promising short-term results, to be an indicator that they are a winning player.


[/ QUOTE ]

We see this regularly on here. Someone coming on and saying how they have it all figured out while everyone sees gaping holes in his thinking in his 'I'm great' post. 6 months(or sooner) we then get the follow-up post that it's impossible to beat loose games. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

This is where the strat forums really come in. There you have to prove your ideas beyond just that you played a hand and because you won(bucking the odds), it was the right play. You get called on your sh*t pretty quick.

This is also why many times you don't even have to see a guy play a hand, instead, just talk to him for about 1/2 hour and you can get a good idea as to his skill level.

b

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"in the short term it's 100% luck" stuff is BS.

[/ QUOTE ] those extra bets you are talking about . . in LIMIT is MAYBE worth 0.50BB/100. IF that!



[/ QUOTE ]

They could be worth a bit more if you compound it with other players regularly NOT making those extra bets.

[ QUOTE ]
you show me a random 100 hands. The difference between a -6BB/100 player which is about as bad as a person can be and a solid player and I bet it'll be 50/50 on who wins the most money.


[/ QUOTE ]

Solid player. Easily.

You really don't think it's 50-50, do you? Hell,the odds aren't even 1-1 on the bad plays the losing player is making.

b

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
If you want to get better, keep a journal, every time you lose a hand, you remember what the other guy's showdown hand was and how he played the hand preflop and postflop and then make note of how you could have played YOUR hand to turn the outcome into a desirable one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Should probably keep a journal of winning hands too.

But what if you were just doomed to lose the hand?

Just because you lose a hand doesn't mean you played it wrong. Just as winning a hand doesn't mean you played it right. Which is why the result doesn't matter.

As an example, you let a guy bet his 2 outer on the turn in a small pot and instead of raising him you call because a raise would make him fold and he'd likely fire again on the river. So you call and he catches to beat you. Should you have then raised instead of called? No. Even though, if you raised, you'd have won the pot.

b

[Oberonn]

[ QUOTE ]
Why are online players so much better? Are you being sarcastic or are there reasons? I'm seriously interested. Please expound.

[/ QUOTE ]

I look at it a little differently, why are live players so much worse?

Well, a live player has to go through a major ordeal compared to an online player just to play. Shower, put on clothes, drive to the poker room, deal with parking, stand in line to get on the wait list, wait, and then only see 35 hands per hour.

Not many people do this just to go fold a bunch of hands, they want to play!

[jimpo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"in the short term it's 100% luck" stuff is BS.

[/ QUOTE ] those extra bets you are talking about . . in LIMIT is MAYBE worth 0.50BB/100. IF that!

[/ QUOTE ]

No I definately do not agree. If I play 100 hands and then go through them one by one w/ PT, there's almost certainly SEVERAL spots where I see that I should have saved or gained a bet by playing better. Maybe you play so well that there are no such spots for you, but I doubt it.

This is certainly well hidden since a 100 hands session result is usually something between -25BB and +25BB and the few bets you had "control over" seem insignificant. But they are there, and after you have played 10 000 hands those are the ones that really count.

[Powder]

While I do agree I don't know exactly how good I am yet, I do beleive that I play better live than online. Also, I'm not claiming to be very good at poker. I like to beleive that I am, but I am keeping an open mind about it.

I don't know why, but I tend to make more and dumber mistakes online. Maybe its something psychological. For some reason I don't respect people online. It may be because I can't see them.

As far as how much I've played live, I really don't know how many hours/hands I have played. Here is my log for live play:



I didn't start keeping a log until the first date shown. I played a good bit before then, but it was mostly LL ($4-8). Webster mentioned above that you play about 35 hands live. While I don't doubt his estimate, it seems to me like I play less than that. At the tables I play, I'd guess its around 25-30, but I could be wrong. With that said, each of the sessions in my log avg about 4 hours. So if you calculate that up, it comes out to about a little over 2500 hands (21x4x30).

There really isn't any need to post an online log, because even if I did post one, it would show all losses. Luckily I don't play online nearly as much as I do live.

Another issue I have online is I don't cash out after every session like I do at the casino. These seems to have an effect, knowing that its all right there at the click of a mouse, and I don't have to actually pull it out of my wallet or the ATM.

For a while, I stopped playing online completely. Recently I played again only to realize I shouldn't, which is what sparked me to make this thread. I also didn't realize that the competition was actually stiffer online. Thanks for your replies.

[jad14]

What limits/games are you comparing online vs live? I am less patient playing online, so I limit the # of hands I will play in a single session.