It all started with a girl ...
How I've become a professional poker player after a strip poker night (Part I).
One night, several years ago, I was at the restaurant eating with a few friends and that girl. Afer the supper and several "Cuba libre", my friends decided to go to another club and we decided to go back home with that girl to play strip poker (her idea). I didn't know her very much but it sounded a funny way to end the night. I was sure that I will keep my clothes and she will have a completely naked in front of me, that’s probably why I accepted to play.
We started to play and she told me the rules, I've never played poker before. That girl knew about poker and 2 hours later I was the one completely naked in front of her.
At that precise moment, I realised two things.
The first one is that the way she looked at me, I will have some action this night with her.
The other thing, and probably the most important, was that poker wasn't about luck, it was about strategy. As I love to learn stuff, I’m good with math and I can be very competitive, I founded my new passion !
I become completely fascinated by the game. I bought a couple of books, bought some plastic chips and made my first home poker games with $0.02/0.05€ blinds. These games were very funny and very easy. People used to buy in with 5€ and loose on average 10€ to 20€ on the table. After few months playing whenever I found players, I conclude that I was a poker mastermind because I won 500€ with the initial 5€ I played in the very first game. I decided to start taking this very seriously and went to casino !!! I was goint to become the next Daniel Negreanu !!!
I went there almost every night. I was playing 6 hours a night and 6 days a week. I started with the smallest table available the 0.50/1 € blinds (buy-in minimum 60€) and as my capital was growing I moved to the 1/2€ and finally to 2/4€ tables. The level of the game at the casino was higher but I kept reading books every day I could keep up with the increasing difficulty and keep winning. At the time I was a newbie in this world but I could manage to win around 1500€ a month on average during the 4 months I played there.
I couldn't see myself going to casinos every night at 9 p.m. and coming back home at 5 a.m for ever. I needed to find a solution to live my dream without having to change dramatically my lifestyle. That's when I heard a player speaking about the online poker games. He told me that you could play poker at home and make a decent living out of it, it wasn't rigged ! That revolutionised the way I felt about my future career. I know, nowadays is very common for someone to play poker online but these days people didn't speak about it that much.
My first 5€ at home had become 500€ and these 500€ had become at the casino 6000€. I decided it was time to leave the long poker nights at the casino and start my new career as an online professional poker player. I had a decent bankroll, I read 4 books, I was ready to start swimming in the vast ocean and eat the whales alive !
I knew I had to expect a higher level online. I was right, the level was much higher than I expected. After a few sessions playing at different levels, I realise that I wasn't ready at all !
I had to re-think my plan !!!
I decided to start at the very beginning on the low tables and make my way to the top. I had my 6000€ bankroll but I was playing the 0.02/0.05€ (buy-in 5€) tables ... funny !
I realise a lot during the first months. Poker is not a game where you try to guess the hand of your opponent by watching the way he smoked his cigarette or how he shakes his hands. Poker is more a game of mathematics and statistics. I had read a lot of classical poker literature and played during the last four months at the casino but I realised that I knew nothing about poker. I really started to understand the game when I start playing online. There's no comparison between playing 25 hands an hour on one single table and playing around 1000 hands an hour on 12 tables. You learn much more about the game, the statistics involved and the importance of the mathematics behind the cards.
I knew then what I had to do ! I bought Holdem Manager, a program that collects all the hands you play and display your statistics and the ones of your opponents over the nicknames on the screen. I started looking for good books about Online poker, books speaking about equity, ranges, statistics, and mathematics. I started to ask thousands of questions on several forums. I subscribe myself to dedicated online professional poker player websites where I could watch videos of professional playing. I also contacted several of them to give me personal coaching. I was doing things right and my poker skills started to improve dramatically. I was starting to think fast, to think well and to understand more in depth the game ...
To be continued ... part II coming soon !
Follow me, @GlitterFart
Fascinating. What I want to know is: Are you in profit?! Also, are you still with the girl?
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I guess you will have to wait until part II to know ...
just kidding !
The girl and I just spent one night together. We remained friends afterwards but that night didn't trigger anything else that basic instincts ... remember, I end up naked in front of her, both alone in my appartment and slightly drunk.
About the profit. Of course I'm in profit, I pay my bills, apartment, car, .. everything with what I earn on the tables. I don't win money every day, I even have loosing months but I always end up the year with a nice net profit. Luck and bad luck makes short-term variation on what you earn (or lose) but in the long term, they get to an equilibrium and only your edge on the field decide whether or not you win money. Nobody is lucky or unlucky during 1 million hands, the winner is the best players.
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if you dont already know @daut44 and @mihudee are both pros also (im a former pro)
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азартные игры - это плохо
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I don't quite understand your statement. What is "bad" ? Poker itself ? What do you mean by "bad" ?
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азартные игры
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Enjoyed your post and upvoted .I've tried to play poker many times and although I'm decent with the math, I get very inpatient. I usually end up pushing the action and eventually lose my cash. I watch great poker players and love how calm, and relaxed they are... and they are also willing to grind it out. My picture of the martini toting playboy isn't the reality I got white playing. Thanks for the post.
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Thank you for reading and your feedback. Patience and emotion control it's probably the hardest part to master.
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Only 1 question: why are they all holding their cards the wrong way..?
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Just a pic I found on Google. Probably because the artist found it more interesting like that.
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I thought poker is about reading the emotions of people to gain an advantage and try to estimate what cards they have. Online poker doesnt show them only their avatars, that takes away a huge expected value from the game, and could shrink your potential profit, might even make it negative.
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see all those multi-colored numbers by each player... theyre percentages. How often they raise, how often they fold, how often they call, from what position etc.
Ill take that data over physical tells any day of the week
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Your potential profit come from the edge you have by playing perfectly your ranges over the ranges of your opponent. There are very rare ocasions when you could effectively use "tells" to decide whether you call or fold a big hand. Most of the time, it's the cards on the board and the ones you are holding that gives you the information you need to decide.
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Well you could if you play hustling style, going in as a pro amongst newbies who will all sweat and make very telling emotions with the inability to hide their emotions. That is some bonus edge.
But if you are a good card counter, that is the main talent I assume.
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There is no card counting at poker. You only see the cards on the table, flop (3), turn(1), river(1) and the cards in your hands(2).
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Go in as a pro against newbies and there will undoubtedly be a noob who is a pro in disguise, there to take advantage of your prestige, giving out bad hands and emotional tells like hot cakes.
As the man said: strategy.
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Moreover, casino is very slow, why would you play 30 hands / hour sitting there when you can open 12 tables and play around 1000 hands / hour at home ?
BTW, I'm mainly a cash game player.
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I'm pretty sure most casual poker players don't know about ranges.
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Indeed, most of them don't know what is a range, nor they know about equity, odds, pot odds, ... even when they know about, they don't know how to use it.
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