How has CardsChat improved your poker skills?

[Marcwantstowin]

Think about when you first came to CardsChat and what your poker skills looked like then. Have your skills improved since joining? If yes, how do you gauge that progress? Are you playing higher stakes/buy-ins? More wins under your belt? Or maybe just lasting longer in games and tournaments?

If not, what do you think would help you to improve?

 

[Marcwantstowin]

So I joined CC in February 2013. My standard of poker was worse than my ability to turn iron into gold: non-existent.

I began by playing on FTP (full tilt poker) and on party poker. I liked the games on FT and the software on Party appealed to me. My experience of playing was limited to freerolls and knowing nothing about BRM, as soon as I won something in a freeroll, there it went in a tournament, I definitely should not have been playing.

I was encouraged to join CardsChat by a former moderator/ member. When I joined I saw there was a league, and it sort of interested me. I joined up and the same moderator had me on his team. I was awful, and did not know the "correct way" to play. I remember one game, where there was a few long term CC members on there and I was gradually losing my stack, so I started shoving, with any picture, ace or pair. I would open shove, and it probably was obvious to the other players at the table that I did not have a clue. I was lucky and managed to knockout a couple of the other players. I think I got to the FT and finished in a reasonable position. My captain. the next day explained to me what I was doing wrong, and said I was lucky. I knew he was right. but did not have a clue on the correct way to play.

I have spent time questioning other more-experienced members who I find very helpful. Since I have been on CardsChat, I have increased my knowledge of the NLHE considerably. I am not an expert, but I went to the wsop this year in Las Vegas and worked out which games I could afford to play. I played in 4 tournaments. (One I played 2 flights for). I managed to cash in the turbo bounty game, winning 13 bounties. I was unlucky in my last hand on that tournament, I was dealt JJ and we all know what happens with them. My opponent hit trip 3's on the flop and I played into his hand.

Oh well - Finishing up, I have learned so much about poker, since I joined CC that the first day I sat down at the WSOP I was not nervous or anything like I thought I would be, that I think this is because CC has given me the confidence to play, without getting nervous and feel confident with what you are doing.

Thank you CC.

 

[Canaldo Kao]

I've improved a lot and every time I see the results of expressive players here on the forum, I try to get better results!
I've already won all the partypoker freerolls and almost all the 888 freerolls, now every day I play $1.10, $3.30 and $5.50 tournaments.
Sometimes I get tickets for much higher value tournaments, but I am eternally grateful to all the tournaments I have won here on the forum, for the opportunities to create a bankroll and improve my poker!
These days I almost got another place in a pokerstars High Roller without spending anything, thank you very much cardschat!❤️💚💛

 

[YLAN]

As inspired by Marc's post above...
What my poker skills looked like then? Well, am not sure but here's to give an idea. I was enticed watching poker on TV to start playing before the "Black Friday of Poker. Played freerolls online, live cash games & tourneys. 1st year was lucky; winning a Pokerstar online APT freeroll package to Macau & some live local tournaments. 2nd year, lost my bankroll on cash games & stopped playing as had to concentrate on work. Just recently returned to playing online last year whence I joined CC to play the regular freerolls in Pokerstars.

Have your skills improved since joining? If yes, how do you gauge that progress? More wins under your belt? Or maybe just lasting longer in games and tournaments? I would like to think that my skills are somehow improving with the regular freerolls in terms of "consistency". Roughly just 3 years of playing poker, I would imagine I need more years of play experience to become better... or would it become cognitively worst? Only time will tell.

Are you playing higher stakes/buy-ins? No. Don't really have the time to grind long runs at this time. The CC tournaments with small number of players are just perfect for my time availability.

More power to the Cardschat team!

 

[hardongear]

No I haven't improved since joining CardChat but that isn't on CC at all and falls directly on me 100%. Cause I've haven't studied to improve my game in 15+ years now. I've built my game out from a TAG style into my own style starting back just before I even started playing when I first started reading 2+2 Publishing poker books and as I still win at micro/low stakes I'd hate to try and change it now. Scared to mess up my game lol. So the only studying I've done is hand reviews to keep my game on track and keep bad habits from forming.

I will credit CC for keeping me discussing, interested, wanting to play more poker and lately thinking improving and moving up to 100nl this time around when I reach $2500. So thanks for all that CC. You've given me some drive to wanna improve and stretch my poker legs outside my comfort zone. So when I do step up and possibly lose at 100nl all you CC degens are to blame and responsible .. Kidding of course. Thanks for giving me some the drive to wanna step up CC degens.

Cheers!!!

 

[f_lampa]

I still play freerolls, probably because I don't spend much time studying

 

[Dejana]

No, nothing has improved...I'm just Uno player!

I joined CC in 2015 to improve my Omaha tactics (I've stayed longer lol), while we still had the old guard of players, who were more than phenomenal...I learn a lot from them!!!

All of this has helped my live games, to be honest, I've never had much of a desire to play online tournaments - cash games are different!

I hope that CC will exist forever and that we will finally create more phenomenal players...

❤️

 

[millya5]

Over the 7 years of presence on the forum, I have certainly improved my poker skills .
Thanks to the forum I learned other poker games.
Of course I would like more.I was new to poker.

I consider myself still a weak player, so I still have everything ahead of me

 

[19aleks57]

I came to CardChat more than five years ago, there were many good freerolls and over time the quality of my game improved, now I miss them, although 888 Poker and ACR are great rooms that lift my spirits.

 

[Falzee]

CardsChat has come a long way over the past 15 years since I joined. There are a lot of very good players here, and (thanks especially to the additions of community games) playing against them on an almost daily basis has definitely improved my playing skills.

 

[pentazepam]

Since I always try to be honest: No improvement at all.

But that is not because of any bad advice from CardsChat, it has no correlation at all with CC-forums or CC-games.

The reason that I answered no improvement is that I started playing LIVE Poker for money in the 80-s and online at the beginning of 2000 (2003 seriously).

Between 2003 and 2008 I bought every poker book and joined every poker training site that was available (almost). I also read a lot on other forums like 2+2.

So when I joined CC in 2008 I was almost at the peak of my poker knowledge. In 2013 I stopped any serious play as a semi-professional poker player.

I play MUCH lower now, hardly any real money games. And I often only spend max 2 hours a day if I multi-table (6-8) tables. I do often play the CC-freerolls on Replay but that is while multi-tasking online.

So if CC would teach me anything now that I can use to make money it would be something completely different than poker discussions and/or freerolls.

That doesn't mean that I know everything about poker, it only means that even if I did improve my current skills it would be hard to earn money that would mean something to me in 2024 at poker - especially since I can put that time on other things that give me more money with less time investment.

Maybe free coaching on how to build the perfect poker bot would help me earn more passive income

 

[Margo17]

A very good community, offers courses, and excellent freerolls, however, I miss the people discussing more hands so that we can improve more and more.

 

[Gritz18]

Think about when you first came to CardsChat and what your poker skills looked like then. Have your skills improved since joining? If yes, how do you gauge that progress? Are you playing higher stakes/buy-ins? More wins under your belt? Or maybe just lasting longer in games and tournaments?

When I joined Cardschat, I already had a good understanding of poker. I would have liked to have taken the 30-day CC course, but I struggled with the language and the YouTube translation is very bad, making it difficult to follow the lessons.

I must admit that I have improved in some aspects of the game by watching the strategy posts here on CC, but I watch a lot of content on YouTube that has also helped improve my game.

 

[john_entony]

Even though I've been playing poker for about 15 years, I learned a lot about poker during the year I've been on CardsChat, which certainly helped me analyze my game. And I saw a lot of mistakes in my game, which I work on every day. As a result, CardsChat made a boost in my game, which allowed me to get not only into the prize zone, but also to reach the final table frequently. In fact, there were tournaments this year that I won. And there were a lot of tournaments where I played at the final table. And that's in addition to the tournaments that CardsChat runs. Yes, the guarantees of these tournaments range from $50 to $150, so in the future I hope to improve my game to win tournaments with guarantees of $500 or more. I also want to thank CardsChat for giving me the opportunity to believe in my own abilities!

 

[Marshmalo1994]

Think about when you first came to CardsChat and what your poker skills looked like then. Have your skills improved since joining? If yes, how do you gauge that progress? Are you playing higher stakes/buy-ins? More wins under your belt? Or maybe just lasting longer in games and tournaments?

At the beggining I used to participate more on the hands analysis. I think that that helped me to understand how to proceed in some specific situations.
There's also the 30 days course, where I learned some concepts that I didn't know before. I'm still working on it tho.

If not, what do you think would help you to improve?

I think that sharing more hands to receive advices would help me a lot, specially with post flop decisions.

 

[Propane Goat]

I'll tell you how little I knew about poker when I joined - I thought that getting dealt J9o twice in a row had about the same odds as winning the lottery. I'm not much better now, but at least I understand hand rankings and can somewhat keep track of what is going on at the table.

No live poker yet, mainly because rooms around here are all in tribal casinos that are fogged out with cigarette smoke and I can't tolerate it.

 

[RhinoRyan89]

Before joining CardChat Forum i had already been playing poker for about 8 years as a recreational hobby.

I found some success early on being a break even to slightly profitable player.

Over the last 4 years of playing with members from the Cardschat community on a regular basis i believe i slightly improved reading situations better and people's playing style.

Also i have become slightly more profitable.

 

[Alex Sentsov]

A good line-up of players improves the quality of my poker)

 

[Poker Orifice]

I first came to Cardschat in 2008. It was during the time of the 'Poker Boom'. online poker was really taking off and the tv stations were loaded with commercials (ie. Absolute Poker, PartyPoker, Pokerstars, Fulltilt) & of course the tv show 'Poker After Dark'. Checking out all of this stuff on tv and having played some poker in my past (in my teenage years mostly) and hearing of a couple friends who were playing online, it had me decide to make a couple of deposits to both Stars & Fulltilt. I never regretted that decision ever... only wished I'd started sooner!

It wasn't long after that I discovered Cardschat and a good thing too because if I hadn't I'm certain my poker playing days would've ended early & with dismal results. I was thirsty for knowledge and the threads on Cardschat lead me to places where I could acquire info. to improve my game (book selection mostly at first). I then learned of training sites via the forum, strategy guides & Hand history analysis posts. The Cardschat buyin games (they had many back then, $1, $3, $5, & $10 games on many different sites) were an excellent training ground to put that theory into practice and the competition within the games was excellent! My 'poker path' would've been so much different without it.

Cardschat helped me out a ton! The generous 'cash-added' games also helped out a ton! I loved those games!

 

[Tero]

I came here about four and a half years ago. Why, I'm no longer sure.

My skills were not much to begin with but they have some what improved. The main benefit of CC is that it forces me to think poker on almost daily bases. Still, when I seek to learn I try to find a no-nonsense approach to it, and that is something I find hard to find here. But I have been able to help those who know even less.

I have climbed a little bit higher on the stakes, yet 5,50 is the highest I'm willing to go at this time.

Or maybe just lasting longer in games and tournaments?

CC is blue but it's not poker Viagra

 

[Suns of Beaches]

since i joined cardschat i was able to participate in a lot of free tournaments on different sites. playing against the same opponents over and over in a small player pool improved my game a lot in terms of exploitative strategies. before cardschat i was basically only playing in big pools with opponents that changed a lot. its a sad tragedy that there are less and less games offered. for me only 888 and replay remains.

from the forum itself i did not learn a lot unfortunately. but im sure there is enough material around for people really willing to learn.

 

[Risto234]

Pretty sure that i have never taken a single cardchat course (or whatever they are/were) so guess it's safe to say that there has been no improvement (towards getting better or downgrating to even worse) ...

Although i do play higher stakes occasionally although this usually happens whenever i win some tickets or so ...

Considering i've been in TOP3 in like 2 (or more) tournaments (so far) this summer alone then guess this could easily be slight improvement especially when you dont play poker regularly nowadays ...

 

[Magallaneroy]

Cardschat have tools to improve my game everyday, thanks for that!

 

[Pabloro10321]

Joining CC allowed me to start reading and seeing the abilities of my classmates, and it helped me improve my own hands.

 

[mattiebumpo]

I am not sure if my game has improved since joining CardsChat, but I do enjoy the community and fun events here, such as the leagues and daily free rolls. I really enjoyed participating in the CC team for the Colossus event at the WSOP for a few years. I went through the online course which refreshed me on the basics of Texas Holdem. I have also played more mixed games. I think if I put more time into hand reviews, it would improve my game more.