Thinking about the future

[DING-DONG YO]

I hate NL cash, love donkaments but don't have 6-8 hours to devote to them. SNGs are fun, but again, I often don't even have an hour to devote to them.

I quit 2 months ago after some terrible game selection, tilt and extremely bad luck. I said GG poker and probably won't be back until the online landscape is significantly different from today.

Can you still make a buck? Sure.

Is it worth my time to put the effort into pushing these miniscule edges against other at least decent players? Not for me it isn't.

I just don't think it is soft enough to be worth the effort anymore. These tough games are just too stressful and keeping up with the competition is too draining. I have enough stress in my life and didn't need another source of it. Once the games get soft again, I will return. My time is better spent with my family and my career IRL.

OP, why don't you look into some non-poker business ventures or opportunities with your roll like Vegan said?

My .02

[Surf]

[ QUOTE ]
lol at the advice in msnl. every opinion conflicts with the one preceeding it so you never know what is "standard."

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT. Half of the advice is terrible, and the other half is good but only from the viewpoint of someone with that person's image.

Surf

[Enon]

I guarantee your game will improve if you start focusing on your other interests more instead of falling into the trap of playing a ton of hands to compensate for bad results. If you focus on being a healthier, happier person by getting more sleep and excercise, seeing friends etc you will find that you will be sharper at the poker table.

It is true though that games are worse and many people on here are just going to have to deal with the reality that they just aren't that good at poker and should move on to healthier jobs. I still do pretty well at poker but now that I finally got my b.a. and have time on my hands, I know for certain that I need the structure and personal interaction that other real jobs have. For me it would be optimal to hold down a full time job with decent salary and benefits and only play 10-20 hours a week on top of that.

Also, being a poker player gives us a tremendous opportunity to give back to our communities. I've always told friends over the past few years how fortunate I am to have such a flexible and lucrative source of income that frees me up to do whatever else I want to do. I'm finally done with school and about to get involved with some unique programs that teach people about nutrition and cooking skills. Many of the kids on here don't realize the tremendous opportunity this is for them to explore other things that are cool about living besides making money and buying cool [censored].

[case3]

I read your post and my situation seems a lot like yours..

I started playing limit full time beginning this year, with almost all my action on WPEX. Things were going fine until May when I took an 8k loss after rakeback playing 10/20 -20/40. Then June comes and the action has all but dried up.

Sometimes I play live but the good limit games are an hour's drive away and charge $18 an hour for time. I worry that playing live could leave me with easy 4 month losing streaks, just like a bad week online playing 15k hands.

So I've started a FT account and am playing small stakes NL. I was always the last hold out among my friends in sticking with limit. I couldn't stand playing NL, but the more I play the more I think it is something I will enjoy. I'm nowhere near as comfortable in my play as in limit yet things are going OK. My variance is much lower and the rake is less of a factor.

My goal is to move up to comparable NL games within 2 months. I've read Sklansky/Miller NL, watched most of the Stoxpoker videos and read all the stickies on strategy in SSNL. Still, I think most of the improvement in my game is coming from playing a lot of hands and thinking about what is working and what isn't.

Starting over is never going to be fun but I think it is your best bet. My feeling is that if I had started out playing NL I would be with all the others who just can't understand why anyone would play limit.

[Jigsaws]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't understand the NL forums at all. Half the hands are people wanting to fold the 2nd nut straight or a set to a moderate amount of action. The other half are people trying to stack off with middle or top pair. I sometimes wonder if limit is as confusing to them as NL is to me.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes... yes, it is. I really have no clue as to where I'm at in a hand in limit. I watch a limit vid on CR and Schneids says 'okay, so I'm going to have to call down here'. Oh, okay. Wait, what, why? Then try 2/4 6max limit and get crushed. Then again, I've played >500k hands of NL and less than 10k of LHE, so that's to be expected.

The big problem with SSNL is the volume. It burns out the regulars. I can't be bothered to respond to a lot of hands because the answer is completely obvious to me. If I do respond it's often going to be one or two lines. The response will be correct, but you'll have to figure the rest out for yourself. To be honest, I don't think that's terrible. Some one-liners from good posters really helped me out in my game.

The first thing I'd do if you're beginning in SSNL is read the sticky and all of the Pooh-Bah posts linked in there. It really is an incredible resource. It even has a Switching to NL from LHE post.

After that start reading and responding to hand posts. Write out what you'd do, why you'd do it and how sure you are the advice you're giving is right. It's fine to give a wrong answer - someone will challenge you and you'll learn something new. Then post a hand you're not sure about, don your asbestos suit and prepare for your mistakes to be flamed down.

Some long-time good posters in SSNL off the top of my head: all the mods, aislephive, carrotsnake, bilbo-san, cbloom, thac, keyser, fly, gimmetheloot, caterp, 2paul2, clayton, jamougha, carnivalhobo, jay riall, istrong, mossberg. The MSNL guys that come down every once in a while give very good advice: Big_Jim & MYNAMEIZGREG, for example. And me, obviously.

[bugstud]

screw the future, seriously. Completely impossible to predict with any kinda of certainty.

[DeathDonkey]

Good post Jigsaws.

re: NL vs limit players: both suck at the other game and think their game is the best. That said, I do feel that limit players are more likely to say "I just don't understand NL" whereas NL players say "limit is retarded" making them closeminded elitist limitfishes.

-DeathDonkey

[donger]

[ QUOTE ]
Good post Jigsaws.

re: NL vs limit players: both suck at the other game and think their game is the best. That said, I do feel that limit players are more likely to say "I just don't understand NL" whereas NL players say "limit is retarded" making them closeminded elitist limitfishes.

-DeathDonkey

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QFT.. no regularly spread poker game is retarded. The whole "OMG REAL POKER!! ALL IN!!" mentality kills me. It's usually the overall least knowledgeable peeps too; If they really understood, they wouldn't hate.

[geormiet]

good post jigsaws, its nice to hear the perspective from a NL player.

I'm glad I started this thread. i haven't been playing much these past few weeks, but I think mentally I am ready to get back to work. here's my plan:

I'm moving to a new site which should have better limit action, and I'll play 15/30 and below for a while. in addition to that, i'll try to get a regular does of ssnl, I guess at stars .10/.25 (i only have $300 at stars) unless I get around to putting more money in. I'll watch the stox videos to start with.

Then i guess on top of that I'll try to play live maybe twice a week. The games at bay101 are seriously mind blowing. Last night when I was there there were more 8 way pots (i.e. everyone but me seeing a flop) than I could count on 2 hands. there were also plenty of 6 way capped pots and the like. just crazy. The 100/200 game didn't seem to be all that bad either, but it looks like a big dropoff from the 40/80. i don't think I'd be happy weathering the swings of 100/200 though, even in a great game. losing 5k in a day makes me unhappy. Losing 15k would make me not want to play poker for a month.

With the $5drop i think i can probably beat the 40 game there for tons, like 3bb/100. Seriously, i looked around the table last night and i realized: I would consider EVERY SINGLE PLAYER there to be a SIGNIFICANT fish if i saw them online. To the poster who said he's worried about 4 monthbreakeven streaks live because he's had 5 digit breakeven streaks online - its not the same. Your win rate live will be way wway wya higher than that of online.

[dangerfish]

3bb/100 is great but not when it takes 3 hours to play 100 hands.