online poker economy
If you play 15/30 and up limit you know we are clearly in a recession......
as predicted,,, eventually the game theorists will flood the market....
they are all rogues,,,, the most common variety being a lawyer.. but all special..
furthermore, they are there to stay!!
each alpha shark in your field affects your bottom line...
With all this negativity, the way to survive is to be special...
Don't venture into other games and switch stuff up cause you're running bad...
figure out what you're best at and do it and study it and get awesome at it!
I hate the predatory nature of heads up limit and i hate the swings and i hate how people threaten me and i hate the darkness of the game..
but that is what i'm good at.
Stew
the sites will kill hu limit at some point I think. Stars obv doesnt have hu tables, FTP just implemented a rule to control the hu stuff, i think we'll see this continue as the sites realized hu poker is actually hurting their bottom line. The fish dont win as often (i know variance is higher, but so is the edge of the winner) so I think they end up coming back less as they have fewer memories of "that time i won." At the end of the day, I think we'll see a transition back to 6max and even some 9max.
9 max runs fairly regularly at Stars, right? I know AP tries to get 9max to run as well. Maybe you are right, but I sincerely hope now, 9max is so, ugh, boring.
Feels like the uber-fish are more likely to take the last seat on a 9max table than a 6max.
it totally depends on the type of fish... i just think generally the fish get cleaned out so fast HU that as a group they should evolve away from it, even if it isnt voluntary, the guys who play hu just wont last as long as the ring players.
where do you study hu limit poker? i observe, but i don't know cards unless there's a showdown...
there are no books... the 2+2 forum is mediocre at best, and sometimes seems absolutely bad... i am reluctant about paying for vids... any recomendations?
p.s. i work full-time in another dying industry (newspaper journalism), and if anyone has any writing career advice, i'll take that, too.
Why are you reluctant to pay for vids? If it improves your winrate even a tenth of a big bet, it pays for itself in a few hundred hands (depending on the stakes you play).
The future of writing is on the internet, I believe. Pay-per-view blogs or something. Maybe Stewie could start the trend.
doll face,
i do not feel your points hold up that well as sites make more per hour in rake with me playing HU compared to other games...
furthermore the fish...... to use a tru blood reference.... get WAY more glamoured in HU poker.... i have several long term opponents who have won lots off me but are still playing losing poker...
this is cause the standard deviation can be 30 HU and 20 6 max...
900 worlds of variance vs. 400 is a huge world of difference as many of those other 500 worlds will be dark and bitter and nothing you have ever seen in 6 player games...
to give you an example i have won over 20 hands in a row in HU limit. sure they did not all go to SD but still 20 in a row....
lets see you pull that shit off in 6 max....
random,
my advice is to learn 6 max then 5 then 4 person tables then 3 and so on...
most hu limit pros are extremely well versed in multiplayer games and you should follow suit
A pure HU pro is extraordinarily rare.
Most strong HU pros will not write a book due to negative EV...
how much could a book make compared to their hourly?!!
I'm a midstakes player and i'm even too smart for that!!
I do OK at HU and I want to get better. But sometimes I get tired of waiting, jump in a six-max game or two and bleed like a gutted fish... Any suggestions for six-max vids or books?
Not paying for vids a BIG mistake imo. These sites charge 30/month max and give info worth 100k a year imo. I watch at least 1 vid a day and will continue to do this until i quit poker, i just dont see any reason not to "sharpen the saw" when im not actually playing. These vids have made me a pretty decent nl, plo, and to some extent hu limit player, join every site asap.
Love the trueblood reference, shows getting nutz.....a minotuar, fking sweet!!
stew... the sites might make more per hour at hu, but the fish certainly have to lose faster. regardless of the variance, the loss-rate is higher (double on average?) which means no matter what, they have to lose faster. If a site makes 50% more per hour off the fish but the fish plays half as long, the site nets a loss. I know most of these sites seem to be run by idiots, but someone smart will get there eventually. The upside for the sites (at least AP) is they dont have to pay props to get hu tables going. Still, i have to think the fish would generate more rake in a game where their loss rate is lower. As for the fish winning, of course you will have fish winning vs you over thousands+ hands. But there are fish that go on runs for several thousand hands at 6max too, and when they do, their regression to the mean takes longer.
At the end of the day, the fish get beat up harder at HU than at 6max, and surely some of them will recognize this and realize they get more entertainment time out of 6max and/or have a better chance of winning. Additionally, if the fish allot themselves X hours to play, the odds of them winning over some specific TIME as opposed to a specific amount of HANDS is going to be greater at 6max/9max. They play 2-3x as many hands in hu, which means in an HOUR they might be 8bet losers on the whole whereas in 6max they might be 3bet losers. The variance certainly cannot overcome this difference in the long run, and i am sure most fish do not measure their success in terms of hands but in terms of sessions. Sessions are of course constrained by both time (have to pick kids up, go to bed, go to work) and money (cant play when you bust)... so when you consider that money is constant in these situations, then an hour vs you @ HU will be devastatingly worse than an hour of 6max with 4 regs and a semi-fish as the game usually is. I have to think that even factoring in the increased variance cannot overcome this fact.
Additionally, commenting on game theory sharks flooding the market, at some point it will be too flooded for it to be worth the time of these people (lets face it, you would make decent money as a doctor, and me as a lawyer, and if this market gets so flooded that we cant get games to keep a decent hourly, then we really have no choice but to return to real world jobs). Just like a regular population, the upper limit of our population is bounded by the resources we have, the shark to fish ratio will reach a certain point and then flatten out, as the sea will not support more sharks.
you have a solid argument and i agree with most of your points..
you are talking like a poker pro though and not a poker site employee..
they are about money money money!@@@!!!!!
lets break down some numbers.. i play HU at 200 hands per hour per table although if i play 3 tables i can only play 500....
i see less than 90% of flops but lets just say 90% to keep math simple.
so in an hour i can see (with great 3 tabling action!) 450 flops per hour at a quarter a toke since hu tables tend to be 50 cent rake right???
If you dont see a flop you make no money for the site. A six max 4 tablers might see 100 flops an hour..
i understand the fish bleed more but you are forgetting about the additional 500 worlds which do not exist in 6 max of which 250 are positive for villian..
i guess i can relate your argument on HU vs 6 max to why people play limit rather than no limit.. the fish stay aroung WAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY LONGER in limit vs no limit and even longer in HU limit.... customer for life more likely in otherwords...
seriously... sometimes in HU I am a total ATM. ANY FISH can take 4 figures off me quickly@!!
random,
the book i recommend is Internet Texas Holdem Winning Strategies For Full Ring and Shorthanded Games by Matthew Hilger....
I discovered his book in 04' and he changed my life...
I am forever in debt to him..
Stew.
Im probably not the best to comment on LHE but I have heard nothing but good things about Bryce's vids on Stoxpoker. I would imagine his videos will do more for your game than any book could? Stewie can probably give a better opinion on that.
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