[Closed] The Adventures of One Dedicated Fish

I know exactly what u mean..I spent lots of time reading through articles, practicing on sit n go wizard, generally doing all i can to try to beat the games yet in the end, the edge i have with all this strategy still isn't enough to make me feel good if i get my money in with the best of it and then lose. I will follow this as i am also a casual player, I love poker but i've also realised there is a reason why 95% of players are losing, it just is that sort of game.

GL with the tournaments but i suggest trying other forms of poker as this is where i get most my fun and make some money as well.

Well, I just tried a rush on demand tournament and made it to 91st of 408. It was fun and I didn't feel too bad about being eliminated. What other forms of poker would you suggest?

2 - 7 Draw obv

Originally posted by Dragar
2 - 7 Draw obv

Got any links to a 2-7 draw instruction manual? I'd need the basic rules first as I know nothing about it other than the strengths of the various poker hands.

Hello belayd,

I'm a silent reader of your blogs and I enjoy your writing style. I wish you luck!

Originally posted by belayd

Originally posted by Dragar
2 - 7 Draw obv

Got any links to a 2-7 draw instruction manual? I'd need the basic rules first as I know nothing about it other than the strengths of the various poker hands.

I think you shuld stick to one an only one type of poker and stick to it. Whatever type you like most but stick to it.

Or you want to discontinued this new blog and start another one?

2-7 NL Single Draw

^^ this is useful for starting out at 2-7.

Also Omaha hi/lo is lots of fun, i've found by having a solid starting hand strategy the low stakes are fairly beatable.

I disagree that u should stick to one game. Yes do as planned and play $1 tourneys, but since you are a casual player, theres no harm trying other games too. You never know, your playing style could be well suited to a different game.

Thanks for the links to the 2-7 single draw rules. I plan to check them out today.

I discussed the objectives of a losing recreational player with my (former) coach and came up with a few things. First, BRM means something different to a recreational player, because the BR required at any stake is infinity. The key is to play the lowest stakes consistent with the player's psychology in order to make the BR last longest. I can't motivate myself to play the 25-cent tourneys, so I've chosen the tourneys that are at the bottom of my psychological motivation range, which are the 1.10s. Second, while a profitable player wants to minimize time invested per tourney in order to maximize ROI, a losing player needs to maximize time invested per tourney in order to minimize losses. So it follows that I need to find the tourneys in which I play for the longest time--and definitely single-table those.

On Full Tilt pretty much all of the 1.10 MTTs are rush on demand, so I tried a few of those. They're lots of fun and you see far more hole cards per hour than in a non-rush tourney, but the time spent playing is inadequate. I averaged less than 10 minutes of play in the ROD tourneys I tried out. So I scrapped those. The choice then was between the 45-man SNGs and the 90-man SNGs. The 45-mans have a rotten prize structure, top 6 paid, while in the 90-mans the top 18 get paid. Also, the 45-mans are regular stack while the 90-mans are double stack. So I've decided to single-table a few 90-man 1.10s each day and see whether I can last long enough in them to make them worthwhile.

The Daily Dollar tourneys are an interesting proposition. The rebuy would definitely be outside BRM for me were I a profitable player. But if I wait until the very end of the rebuy hour and invest $3 (buyin, one rebuy and one addon) I get a 5K chip stack when the blinds are only 50/100. That means I can afford to give the rebuy a shot every second or third day. The freezeout costs only $1 but is multi-entry. I used to take two entries in order to maximize potential profit, and I can still do that if I play every second day, or I can play every day and just buy one entry. With FTP I can also try the 60-FTP daily dollar satellites and see whether I can win some free entries. I really don't care about saving up 15K FTP so I can buy a Full Tilt baseball cap.

So off I go to spend my existing 147 FTP on a couple of DD satellites. Thanks for reading, and all comments welcome.

NOTE: I'm sorry I abandon blogs and start new ones so often. I'll do my absolute best to stick with this blog from now on.

EDIT: The link you provided is to a blog that involves discussion of advanced 2-7 draw concepts but does not provide the basic rules. I'm reading the blog but shall need a basic rules primer somewhere. Yes, I know what the various five-card poker hands are, but don't know how to play 2-7 draw.

I've checked my stats in HEM. In the STTs I've lasted an average of 37 minutes, but in the seven 90-mans I've played I've lasted an average of 48 minutes, which is only slightly better--with only one ITM. My large-field MTTs have consisted entired of the Daily Dollar tourneys and the Ferguson, where I've lasted an average of 118.6 minutes and have a small but respectable number of ITMs. I would play other $1 MTTs, but non-rush MTTs at that stake are nearly nonexistent on Full Tilt. If I'm going to invest $3 in the DD rebuy and $2 in the DD freezeout, however, I can see my way clear to investing $2.20 or $3.30 in a regular MTT, preferably a deep stack one. It's rotten BRM, but as I've already indicated, BRM is not a concept applicable to losing players anyway.

The Ferguson is back tonight after having disappeared for a few days. If I'm awake when it starts three and a half hours from now, I'll give it a whilr.

I'm also investigating other potential hobbies that offer the security of having no chance at all of returning a profit, just a fixed expense in exchange for enjoyment and passing time. If any of them pan out I'll post a bit about them here.

I'll be following Belayd, best of luck to you in everything pal whatever you choose to do!

Have had a very light poker day today. When I wanted to play an MTT, all of the 1.10s were ROD, so I ended up settling for a 90-man SNG. After sewering out of that in 75th place, I simply lost interest in playing for the rest of the day. I discussed this with a skype chatmate who is also into poker, and we both volunteered that a recreational player should never play when he isn't motivated. In fact, the other guy said that, despite being a serious microstakes grinder, _he_ doesn't play when not motivated because he wouldn't be playing his A game. We both expressed some sympathy for the full-time and part-time pros who are obliged to put in their volume even when they don't want to play or aren't feeling their best--and some of whom don't even enjoy grinding any more. I had the very minor epiphany that one reason I'm not serious about poker is that I don't want it to become just another job. Despite holding down jobs from early adolescence, I always hated work and don't want to turn my primary recreational activity into just more work.

Full Tilt is pissing me off in a major fashion by not offering any tournaments I can reasonably enter. The time-played reward on the RODs is puny, the time reward on the 1.10 90-mans is not adequate, and the cheapest regular MTTs that might offer a decent time reward, the 2.20s, rarely have even 100 entrants. My main criteria for entering an MTT are that (1) it be affordable, and (2) it enable me to play for a minimum of 60 minutes on average. The only MTTs that offer that to me right now are the Daily Dollars and the Ferguson. So, despite having become comfortable on Full Tilt, I might well be changing poker sites fairly soon. Maybe some Pokerstars regulars can tell me whether switching to Stars would be an intelligent idea.

may i suggest you play the super turbos
great fun and you got to be bad player to not have a plus roi in these

Btw, you can identify this mysterious chat-guy, I'm okay with it It's me, no need for the cloak-and-dagger

If you want to try out PokerStars I have like, 15-20 bucks on there. I'll trade it to you for equivalent Full Tilt money if you like. I'd take a small loss as well, I don't have any plans for that money after all.

Originally posted by Melissaash
may i suggest you play the super turbos
great fun and you got to be bad player to not have a plus roi in these

Super turbo means 1-minute blinds? How can anyone have a positive ROI in what's essentially a donkament? Sorry if my question sounds disrespectful, I'm genuinely curious.

Originally posted by Salivanth
Btw, you can identify this mysterious chat-guy, I'm okay with it It's me, no need for the cloak-and-dagger

If you want to try out PokerStars I have like, 15-20 bucks on there. I'll trade it to you for equivalent Full Tilt money if you like. I'd take a small loss as well, I don't have any plans for that money after all.

Thanks very much for the offer, even though funds transfer discussion is technically not permitted here. We can discuss it in chat.

Super Turbos are 3-minute blinds, you start at 300. And because nearly everyone at the micros SUCKS at push/fold, you can make a profit. BoboSVK played Super Turbos for quite a while, making a profit (Viewable in his blog) but had a huge, HUGE BE stretch and quit: As you only have a small edge in Super Turbos, variance is massive.

Can suggest the 11$ Super deep stack tournaments... usually 3+ hours of play minimum.

Also check out the 11$ MSOP 100k guarantee event Sunday... I will be playing in that as well.

But that costs way more in $/hour than the cheaper tournaments, which is an issue.