just wondering if anyone plays at full tilt poker? play money or real money?

poker stars

yeah ive played at ftp for about 5 years with real money

Yup. Play money only. I play real money home tourneys where I live twice a week.

I'm a poker fanatic. I live, breath, and sleep poker. I play on pokerstars for real money. In the process of learning the art of multi-tabeling micro stakes.
Anyone read/post on twoplustwo?
Anyone making a profit?

i've been playing for a while b ut just noticed the "real money" option. i was wondering how easy it is to withdraw winnings. (?)

If you use a credit card, they just dump the money onto the card. Easy.

Read this thread on twoplustwo before you start playing with money --> http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/mi ... os-430637/

Like I said, just play money online. In my local games, we play $15 buy-in on Wednesday nights, $25 buy-in on Friday nights. I've got about a $1000 bank roll right now. I make a trip to the casino about once every three months, take about $250 and play 1/2 no limit tables. I'm about even on those trips.

there's some gaybo at work that babbles on about how he won $200,000 on poker on facebook. no one cares.

Play for cash on Fulltilt. Over the past couple years I'd say I've broken even. When I've pulled money out of my fulltilt account I've never had a problem.

My father-in-law only plays for fake money but with nothing to lose, most of the idiots online give him a false sense of his own playing. I get tired of hearing him talk about how people play so poorly online - yea, that's because they can click a button, and refill their bankroll. You're not going to get a good idea of how to play well against such competition. Makes my work easier on holidays when the family gets the odd cash game going, though.

not trying to be a gaybo. guy asked.

i just meant the gaybo at work.

Anyone have any thoughts on these Double or Nothing sit and go's on pokerstars? I built up my bankroll 6x greater than my initial deposit by playing these, but ended up going busto in the past month trying to win a seat in the WSOP main event, and now can't seem to get back into the groove again to build my bankroll back up.

Anyone play these enough to have a strong winning strategy?

For those on Full tilt, the pokerstars double or nothing tourny's are set up like this:

10 players
1 table
Top 5 players Double their buy in ($10 buy in, be one of the last 5 standing, you walk away with $20)

I've read on twoplustwo about guys who play ten of the $10 DoN tourny's at a time and win 8-9 of the 10. Then repeat. Dudes on there talking about quiting their jobs, buying cars, etc.

I played semi-pro on paradise and pokerstars from 2004-2006. I have a lot of stories, observations and book recommendations, if you want em.

ultimately, this is what I was hoping to get out of this thread.

i'm all ears.

I was primarily an MTTer and STTer, not so much a cash game player.

As far as MTT goes, there's no better strat book than Tournament Poker by Tom McEvoy. I read my eyes out on that book, probably 6-7 times. Perhaps the most important concept is how overvalued barely getting into the money is in an MTT (or STT for that matter).

As far as general poker goes, the Theory of Poker is the most important cornerstone of any library. It's not a book about situations - it's a book about concepts. The Gap concept is a great concept to think about at all times. It illustrates perfectly why what cards you're holding are often the least important aspect of any poker play.

I also highly recommend Brunson's super system, as it has a lot of important concepts in it, particularly regarding things like table selection and position.

As far as advice goes:

* Never have any less than 20 buyins at any NL cash limit you regularly play at, never have less than 100 big blinds at a limit game you intend on playing every day at.
* Never enter any tourney with more than 20% of your current bankroll
* If you play STT's, play at a limit where you can lose 30 in a row without going broke.
* If you play MTT's, play way smaller than you think. If you have $100, don't play $10 tourneys, play $5. The variance is huge and impossible to measure. Trust me, I know.
* The variance is always way bigger than you think. Way, way, way bigger.

Also - learn how to play Omaha and Omaha 8, and Stud 8. It's way easier to exploit people in those games. Badugi and Triple Draw to an even greater extent.

your advice is greatly appreciated. Especially on the book recommendations. I've been researching a lot about what book to start with. I've been playing poker for about 2 years now. Online for about a year and have yet to become a winner. I mean, I win, but I've yet to start a steady upwards climb regarding my bankroll.

Did you use tracking software? I'm into day 10 on my trial of poker tracker 3. Trying to figure out what stats to use to help my game.

you say you played from 2004-2006. what happened to make you quit?

I experienced a lot of gradual success, culminating in early 2006 with huge run that set me up to go pro. While playing full time in early to mid 06, the emotional expense got a lot bigger, especially when the sums of money got higher. I would really personalize huge wins and huge losses, and they would largely determine my attitude for the day. I stepped back and realized I didn't want that. The whole thing really took its toll on me, and it was difficult to step back down to part time from that point, so after a few up and down months of marginal wins, I decided I would rather focus on music and other things and take an extended break from poker. I ended up liquidating my bankroll (at that time it was about 5 figures) and put it entirely into a couple of vacations and label-related expenses. I'm really really glad I got out when I did because I was really not in a good place with the game at that time.

pokertracker was great when I used it, but that was years ago. I used it most often to keep track of the types of player I was up against more than my own personal stats.

what stats did you find most useful when trying to figure out how to play against an oppontent? I've been trying to figure out how to use this pokertracker thing and so far all i do is look at the numbers once in a while, go "Hmmmm?", and continue playing like i don't even have the thing.

sorry for all the ?'s (i've got a million of them), but you're the first person I've come across that can answer my questions about taking the next step in online poker.

good info.

i am thinking of playing for real $ at full tilt. i've been playing phony money for a couple years now and think i'm ready for the $mall time. i figure i'll start with a small deposit and see how it goes.

More than anything else, I find that most players in the beginning stages of poker focus way too much on their own cards and way too little on their opponents. Let me give you an example.

I was at Harrah's watching a live $5/$10 table in East Chicago a few years ago. I could tell right away that this had to be a really lively table, because there was one guy on the corner with an absolutely absurdly huge stack for that limit in front of him - something like $1600 or $2000. I didn't think anyone would sit down with so huge a stack, so something weird was probably going on. I watched two or three hands. It turns out that the pots were frequently capped preflop, usually at least 5 ways, because this dude was always raising. Moreover, this guy would - get this - announce to the table what cards he needed every hand at every stage, as if he was playing the house at blackjack and didn't need to hide his cards. He would play any two in any position at any time - he was the perfect LAG. And he was absolutely crushing this table on a sick run with garbage cards.

Everyone else at the table was totally on tilt. They had obviously not anticipated this guy's play, and most importantly they had not adjusted their valuations of their hands accordingly. You know what kind of hands get killed in high stakes, multi-way, loose aggressive play? High pairs and high cards in general. Hands like AJ or AT have virtually no value at all in any position, and high pairs get murdered on every street unless they hit sets. Guys were lining up to donate to his 38o and 47s with their pocket tens and jacks, and going further on tilt in the process. These guys had absolutely no idea how to play this table.

The types of hands that go way up in that situation are pairs for set value only, suited connectors and even unsuited connectors. Flush cards are usually garbage unless you hit a draw, because if you end up hitting a pair you're way behind. One pair never holds up eight-way - that's what was killing all these guys.

A seat opened up just behind the crazy dude and I couldn't get in there fast enough (it was late night and there was no list). I sat back and played as few hands as possible. I played absolutely no high cards, and waited on pairs for set values and suited connectors. About an hour in, I had essentially been blinded off, and I hit pocket 33. My set hits the flop, and I murdered captain loose who ends up with two pair. The pot was $400 at 5/10, I promptly immediately picked up and left. Why? Because my expectation was going to be any higher than that.

See that had nothing to do whatsoever with my cards, and it had everything to do with adjusting to the situation.

In the case of pokertracker specifically, you need to identify the table table by factors like how high their VP$IP is (the amount they voluntarily put into the pot). The more loose a table plays, the more tight you have to play, and adjust your hand values accordingly. the more tight a table plays, the more you have to steal pots and loosen way up. Often times raising goes a long way and representing scare cards too.

Another quick funny story -

I was at Diamond Lil's in Seattle, a chintsy reservation in Renton. In the old days in the reservations around Seattle the highest amount that could be bet at any time was $25, and the highest denomination of chip was $2. There was no no-limit (this was pre-Moneymaker and the current craze), so the biggest stake was $12/$24 limit with $2 chips.

My friend Geoff and I knew exactly what type of game this was, because we'd played it a few times before. It was a game dominated by loose aggro Asians who love to gamble and are super-loose at poker. I mean super loose. I don't know why these guys get so crazy - I just know at Diamond Lil's they are always sitting in these poker games. Anyway, we are sitting next to one another at one end of the table. As you can imagine, at 12/24 with 2 dollar chips, people literally had pyramids of chips in front of them, in all sorts of weird arrays. Stacks of 6 chips were always handy to quickly bet and raise with.

I'm dealt ATs on the button. First to act (UTG) raises, and 7 people call to me. Yes, everyone. So I consider my options, know it's something like 9:1 to flop a flush draw, know I have odds to raise because everyone's in, and decide to repop. We end up 9 ways capped preflop. Something like $440 was already in the pot. The sick thing is because of it, I called a flop bet with no pair and one of my suit, because I had odds at that time to continue for either a runner runner two pair/flush/trips. My buddy had odds to keep playing his bottom pair, which he tripped on the river for a $1400 pot of $2 chips.

It took him forty five minutes just to stack. I got up and had dinner to get out of his way.

I want more posts from Spade Kitty in this thread.

I doubt that's ever been said before.