Jean-Guy
Rock Star
Silver Level
I would advice you to play NL10, Wolly. Play it untill you have won say €1.000. This can take some time but best to be patient.
Did you know that you as a Romanian can get a much higher income in a country like mine, Denmark since we are both in the EU. Even if you are unemployed the state gives you about €2.000 pro month. Almost all have jobs and the lowest salary is €3.500-€4.000 each month. I used to know a Romanian woman with a degree in political science from Bucharesti. She worked in the elderly care system in Denmark and earned about €4.800 pro month.
Jean-Guy
Rock Star
Silver Level
I know that because I’m Danish. Yes, it works with every job. You do not get a home. But if you pay the rent it ain’t hard to get a place to live. If you choose to study you will get an apartment. In Denmark you get paid to study. About 7600 Danish kroner monthly which equals €1.000. It’s only students from The EU who get paid to study. Several thousand Romanians live in Denmark. Most of them work in elderly care where they have a good reputation. The study to this job only takes two years.
Jean-Guy
Rock Star
Silver Level
In the long run - which can be v e r y long - luck does not mean anything. It’s all skills. As for math my 12 year old son can easily do the poker math. It’s that simple.
K
kingofnaps
Enthusiast
Silver Level
This is SHOCKINGLY BAD advice! I haven't posted on this forum in years and never read it but for whatever reason I decided to check this forum today and I saw this thread and this post by Jean-Guy and I am SO DISGUSTED by what Jean-Guy said that I actually logged in and am replying to this. Wolly said he makes 200-500 euro per month, and we can assume he spends some of that, so he will only save 100 or maybe 200 euro per month....Wolly -very- clearly has absolutely no idea about poker strategy. His first post in this thread literally says he doesn't even know where to begin to learn poker strategy. That means if Wolly sits down to play for real money, he will be losing at a rate of at LEAST 100bb/100. At 10nl that's $10 per 100 hands , and 1 regular table is 75 hands per hour and a zoom table is 200 hands per hour. A 6max 10nl game will have an average makeup of the following players : you who sits down to play, 4 regulars and 1 fish, or sometimes you, 3 regulars, and 2 fish. And the fish who are playing are usually going to be SIGNIFICANTLY better than Wolly, who himself said he does not even know where to begin learning poker strategy. Wolly has come to a poker forum ASKING for help in where to start, and your advice to him is to sit down at 10nl where he will get crushed so hard that he loses in 5 hours everything he saves up after an ENTIRE MONTH of work?
To be honest, I can only see TWO ways you would give that advice to play 10nl. 1. you're a massive whale and don't even have the slightest clue how hard and fast Wolly will lose, or 2. You're giving him terrible advice on purpose because you think it's funny to put him in a situation where he loses an entire month's worth of savings in a few hours.
Wolly, if you're going to play, you should obviously start at 2nl and not ANY higher than that, and you should expect to be losing significantly at the start. I would recommend watching as many free good poker videos as you can, which is going to be next to impossible for you to know when it's a quality video.....but you should start by watching Phil Galfond's Philosophy series on youtube, from the time when he was a coach at bluefirepoker. I am not even sure if it's still up on youtube, I just searched and I can only find a few of the episodes, but even if that's the case it's still a lot better than nothing.
There is a guy called pokerflex if you search that name on youtube you will see some videos. They won't really mean a whole lot to you if you don't even know the basics though but it's something to consider watching in the future.
These kinds of videos is what you are looking for, where the guy making the video is actually talking about what the ranges are, how they interact with the board, and what makes sense as far as how to play your hands given the situation you're in. If you're serious about trying to make some money, and you're not just playing to gamble it up and have some fun, then you should not pay for any training courses, and stick to 2nl until you can actually beat it. Why would you pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a training course when you can at most make around $8-10 / hour if you were playing 4 zoom tables of 25nl which would be 800 hands per hour...... when are you going to make your money back that you spent on the training course? And chances are it won't turn you into a winner magically just like that by watching it... As far as your winrate question, a winrate of 3bb/100 is solid. A 3bb/100 winner at 200nl is crushing those stakes. At 2nl it's not super unreasonable to be a 10bb/100 winner if you're decent. but if you're winning at 3bb/100 over a 100k hand sample, then you're doing well.
As far as math, like if your opponent bets 3/4 pot , he is risking 3 to win 4+3 so 3 to win 7, so his bet needs to work 43% of the time.... so you need to defend 100%-43% of your range vs that, so 57%, either by raising or calling. this is the minimum defense frequency, or MDF. Also once he bets 3/4, the pot becomes 7 and now you have to call 3 to win a total of the 7+3 ... so 3 to win 10, so you need 30% equity vs his range. and your opponent should optimally have 3 bluff combos for every 7 value combos he has in this situation, in order to make your pure bluffcatchers indifferent. It's not that simple though because if he's not bluffing enough then you don't need to defend enough to prevent him from exploiting you, and you can just fold everything that's not beating some of his valuebets. If you call more often than your mdf given the size he bet, then villain loses all incentive to bluff you. if you fold more often then his bluffs are profitable and he can bluff any two cards he has in that spot. If you're in a spot in real life where villain can't be bluffing, then you fold everything..... you don't need to meet some defense requirement. if you're in a spot where all the gutshots, straight draws, and flushdraws missed, then that's generally a good spot to call everything because your opponent can be easily overbluffing (bluffing more than what is mathematically optimal for his bet sizing)
As far as what ranges to play you should make an account on gtowizard.com and you can explore preflop ranges for free. What you need is the opening ranges and the 3betting ranges. Don't really worry much about 4bet and 5bet ranges because nobody will bluff those spots in 2nl which will mean you want to be very tight against 4bets and 5bets. Also, very importantly, you can look up 1 postflop spot per day for free on gtowizard, without paying. This should be of great use to you, to see how the solver plays against itself to be unexploitable. Your goal here is obviously not to memorize what the solver is doing at what frequency with what hand, but to get a general idea of how ranges change vs various actions (bet/raise/check).
I will add, for example if you polarize and bet big or huge (polarize meants bet a polarized range consisting of the nuts or air), you wouldn't want to for example cbet T9 on KT2 for a pot sizing.... because the bigger you bet, the less your opponent has to defend mathematically, and now you're sticking in a bunch of money with T9 for no reason and only getting called by better and never by worse, when you could have just checked back flop and seen a free card and kept in your opponent's worse hands in his range and potentially checked down and seen a showdown and won vs those without risking any money. Unless of course you had T9s with a flush draw on KT2 , then you could potentially bet pot size, because now you have a bunch of nutty equity and that changes things because now you can win a big pot the times you hit and that combined with villain sometimes calling with T8s or T7s for example, makes it good enough to bet big. That's not the best example because your 9 is dead when you hit 2pair because villain will hit QJ and stack you, and there are many, many more offsuit Tx hands that beat you than there are suited tens worse than yours....so you could pot size cbet with QTs with the flush draw for example...
Anyways, I wasn't even planning on saying any of that besides that if you're going to play, you should stick to 2nl, and that Jean-Guy's advice for you to play 10nl is absolutely SICKENING. I don't know why you would EVER tell that to someone on a poker strategy forum when the person came to ask for help. Jean-Guy, would you want someone to tell you to go sit at 10nl with your $100 that you just spent an entire month of real life working to save, and then you lose it all in a few hours because somebody you asked for help, instead of helping you when you don't even know where to begin with the game of poker, told you to go sit at the games where you're going to get completely annihilated instantly for all your money which took a LOT of effort to acquire and save?
K
kingofnaps
Enthusiast
Silver Level
And I wasn't clear so I'm coming back for a quick edit, Wolly, I would recommend you dont even play 2nl until you watch a LOT of good poker videos and actually notice yourself understanding the reasoning behind why the guy making the video is making the play he is with his hand. Once you are actually thinking reasonably about the game, only then should you deposit to play 2nl. Again that's only if you're trying to be serious about it, otherwise there's nothing stopping you from depositing whenever and doing whatever.
Also to make a valuebet you need to have more than 50% equity against the calling range, which should be intuitive. And if the guy will bluffraise you sometimes then you need more than 50% equity, because obviously then sometimes you would be sticking money in and folding to the raise and losing your bet.
Good luck Wolly, it's a very complicated game and hard to get better at, but it is also super fun and interesting!
Jean-Guy
Rock Star
Silver Level
As for NL10 it is baby stakes.
So all in all your advice is trivial. A crash course in obviousness. Yawn!
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Pokerpoet2
Legend
Loyaler
gambling in any form is not a secure way of making a Living, Sure you can be lucky and win huge amounts, but ask yourself Why there are more bookies in the High street than there are Tailors? Because at the end of the day there really is only one winner, The Bookie!
I used to gamble heavily on the Horse and Greyhound Races, There were times I would throw my un-opened Wage packet in my Sock Drawer, because I had won so much from Gambling I didn't need my meagre wages from my full time job.
There were other times I had to borrow money from Friends and Relatives just to get to work and feed myself, Being single I had no responsibilities other than myself, But as with many people I found I had fallen in Love with a Woman and I decided to quit Gambling.
She knew I had a problem but never commented on it and I have to empathise, it was my own decision, she had no say in the matter. But I realised I was happy to spend money on her when I was a Winner, but could be a real pain in the butt to live with when I lost money.
Rather than risk my relationship with this Woman, I took the biggest gamble in my Life and We got Married, We have been together for almost 50 years now and I still feel like a Winner.
Gambling is rare for me now, I still enjoy a day at the Racetrack, or a game of Live Poker once a Week but I keep my bets within my bankroll Limits, If I cannot afford to lose it, I don't use it! It is that simple.
Gambling is Fun, especially when you are a Winner, But there is no Fun being a Loser!
I used to gamble heavily on the Horse and Greyhound Races, There were times I would throw my un-opened Wage packet in my Sock Drawer, because I had won so much from Gambling I didn't need my meagre wages from my full time job.
There were other times I had to borrow money from Friends and Relatives just to get to work and feed myself, Being single I had no responsibilities other than myself, But as with many people I found I had fallen in Love with a Woman and I decided to quit Gambling.
She knew I had a problem but never commented on it and I have to empathise, it was my own decision, she had no say in the matter. But I realised I was happy to spend money on her when I was a Winner, but could be a real pain in the butt to live with when I lost money.
Rather than risk my relationship with this Woman, I took the biggest gamble in my Life and We got Married, We have been together for almost 50 years now and I still feel like a Winner.
Gambling is rare for me now, I still enjoy a day at the Racetrack, or a game of Live Poker once a Week but I keep my bets within my bankroll Limits, If I cannot afford to lose it, I don't use it! It is that simple.
Gambling is Fun, especially when you are a Winner, But there is no Fun being a Loser!
hardongear
Visionary
Silver Level
@wolly...
Judging by you day job $$$, the fact you're new and just learning please do yourself a favor and start at 2nl. I'd even recommend full-ring over 6 max or any fast games/tables. 20+ years experience tells me the softest and easiest competition is full-ring 2nl. Yes it seems very low and a crappy place to start down with the babies
sort of speak.
However in the long run it will save you money, there is a benefit for new players in starting at 2nl when it comes to experience and learning to adjust your game to be a winning player for the current player pool you're in. And you will have to learn to adjust your game as you move up in stakes best to learn how cheap. Same as learning poker in general and learning how to become a winning player best to do it cheap as possible as it can be a long road. Enjoy the journey.
Way back when I started I had read 7 books, studied for 4-6 months and played a ton of play money before I ever sat at my first online real money table. Looking back a lot of that of time wasted because of how easy it was to win back then but that isn't the case now days. I also started at 50nl right off the bat.
Cheers!!!
Judging by you day job $$$, the fact you're new and just learning please do yourself a favor and start at 2nl. I'd even recommend full-ring over 6 max or any fast games/tables. 20+ years experience tells me the softest and easiest competition is full-ring 2nl. Yes it seems very low and a crappy place to start down with the babies
sort of speak.However in the long run it will save you money, there is a benefit for new players in starting at 2nl when it comes to experience and learning to adjust your game to be a winning player for the current player pool you're in. And you will have to learn to adjust your game as you move up in stakes best to learn how cheap. Same as learning poker in general and learning how to become a winning player best to do it cheap as possible as it can be a long road. Enjoy the journey.
Way back when I started I had read 7 books, studied for 4-6 months and played a ton of play money before I ever sat at my first online real money table. Looking back a lot of that of time wasted because of how easy it was to win back then but that isn't the case now days. I also started at 50nl right off the bat.
Cheers!!!
Huntre
Rock Star
Platinum Level
Sorry, maybe it little bit offtopic, but anyone has flash drive which you can put direct in your brain and implement all knowlage at once?
Seriously now, every new concept must be finish with practice, any strategy to do so?
Seriously now, every new concept must be finish with practice, any strategy to do so?
Jean-Guy
Rock Star
Silver Level
Yes you can Wolly and it might be a good thing to do. Most pokerrooms offer NL2.
Generally speaking a hard working player can win about 15BB hourly - 30 cent. See it as a good training ground.
K
kingofnaps
Enthusiast
Silver Level
10nl is baby stakes to you because you live in Denmark where, as you said, the lowest salary is 4k euro per month... but for OP who is making only a few hundred euro per month because he is in Romania, 10nl is not baby stakes. If YOU sat down on 10nl without even knowing the fundamentals and were losing a few hundred per month, that would have no impact on your life because with your salary it doesn't matter to you, but Wolly is telling us he's got an income somewhere between 200 and 500 euro per month, and for him it's a disaster if he loses a few hundred per month, because that's all his spending money.
And also if it was you with a Denmark income asking for help, and that you wanted to try seriously learning the game, I would also tell you to stick to 2nl until you can beat it (even though losing at 10nl wouldn't affect your life), and I'd also tell you to not even play until you can recognize your poker thought process has gotten better.
Additionally if Wolly were to get good and beat 4 tables of 10nl zoom for 5bb/100, that's $4/hour, times 160 hours, which is $640/month, which is more than he's making now so that's another reason it's not baby stakes for Wolly...
Also, even though 10nl is "baby stakes" in terms of the 10nl regs not being actually good at poker, the regs at 10nl are still 1 million times better than Wolly, and even the 10nl fish will be much better than Wolly. And yet you still casually recommend Wolly to play 10nl when he can't even imagine how much better the 10nl regs are than him, given he doesn't know the fundamentals, and he also has no chance of beating the fish......
What's actually "yawn obvious" is that you are spreading blatantly false information that 10nl will be easy to beat for someone who is brand new to the game.
And as far as the simple math I mentioned, you might be aware of it, but Wolly isn't and he specifically asked for where to start because he doesn't know anything about the math in poker.
Jean-Guy
Rock Star
Silver Level
You are absolutely right. Bad advice from me.
K
kingofnaps
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Wolly, I would also like to add that anyone saying you should use an RNG to make a poker decision is either a whale and you should not watch their content, or they're playing 200nl or higher and they're crushing their stakes and they're just pretending to use an RNG to not give away their thought process in the spot they're talking about, so the other regs don't counter them.
You play your hands in the way you think they will make the most money, that's it. And after you play some hands, you review them off the table to try to get better. You'll need a HUD for that though which will cost you around $100 but yeah...a HUD is the only thing you should buy. And they have 1 month free trials so you can use them for a while for free until you decide if you want to buy one.
90% of poker content on twitch or youtube is absolute garbage and it's just someone clicking buttons and sharing absolutely no insight as to what a solid thought process for making your decision would look like.
Basically if they're not talking about exploits they're making based on how they expect their opponents to react, and what makes those exploits valid, then you shouldn't watch that video because it's useless garbage. For example if postflop they bet and call a raise with a super marginal hand, and all they say is "standard call", then you should probably not watch anything from that video maker ever again....the reason is that there is absolutely nothing standard about calling a raise with a super marginal hand... either it's a good call vs this opponent because of certain factors, or it's a bad call because of certain factors... and if all the video maker says is, "standard call", then he's clearly unaware of what factors push the decision towards either call or fold.... unless he's already commented on this villain's tendencies earlier in the video. If he's already commented that villain is spewing, then for the rest of the video he can just simply say "standard call" because it's now implied that you win more money with the hand than you're supposed to against this spewy villain.
Again, if the video maker is just clicking buttons and all he's saying is, "here we bet, Here i'm going to check, Here i am going to call," then the guy is clearly a whale who is incapable of a solid thought process, otherwise he would be talking you through his thought process in every single hand.
Good luck Wolly, this game is loads of fun!
You play your hands in the way you think they will make the most money, that's it. And after you play some hands, you review them off the table to try to get better. You'll need a HUD for that though which will cost you around $100 but yeah...a HUD is the only thing you should buy. And they have 1 month free trials so you can use them for a while for free until you decide if you want to buy one.
90% of poker content on twitch or youtube is absolute garbage and it's just someone clicking buttons and sharing absolutely no insight as to what a solid thought process for making your decision would look like.
Basically if they're not talking about exploits they're making based on how they expect their opponents to react, and what makes those exploits valid, then you shouldn't watch that video because it's useless garbage. For example if postflop they bet and call a raise with a super marginal hand, and all they say is "standard call", then you should probably not watch anything from that video maker ever again....the reason is that there is absolutely nothing standard about calling a raise with a super marginal hand... either it's a good call vs this opponent because of certain factors, or it's a bad call because of certain factors... and if all the video maker says is, "standard call", then he's clearly unaware of what factors push the decision towards either call or fold.... unless he's already commented on this villain's tendencies earlier in the video. If he's already commented that villain is spewing, then for the rest of the video he can just simply say "standard call" because it's now implied that you win more money with the hand than you're supposed to against this spewy villain.
Again, if the video maker is just clicking buttons and all he's saying is, "here we bet, Here i'm going to check, Here i am going to call," then the guy is clearly a whale who is incapable of a solid thought process, otherwise he would be talking you through his thought process in every single hand.
Good luck Wolly, this game is loads of fun!
M
mclay
Visionary
Platinum Level
Taking money from others is bad, buddy. Start playing with freerolls and make sure to spend time learning every day.
W
wolly
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Join the /r/Denmark Discord Server!
Check out the /r/Denmark community on Discord - hang out with 3501 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
This is the link and look up at my name and read the answers!
Jean-Guy
Rock Star
Silver Level
You are dead wrong Wolly. What I was too polite not to mention is that Romanians have a bad reputation in Denmark. Not due to Ceaucescu, but because of their high crime rate and organised crime. I won’t click your link since it is most likely a scam or a Trojan Horse. Did you know that “rumænsk hønsetyv” is Danish for a Romanian fraudster. I’ve met some girls from Bucharest. They were nice.Join the /r/Denmark Discord Server!
Check out the /r/Denmark community on Discord - hang out with 3501 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.discord.com
This is the link and look up at my name and read the answers!
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Jean-Guy
Rock Star
Silver Level
You are 100% wrong. All I wrote is the pure truth. Why should I lie? Hope you can cope with that. I hope you can make ends meet in Romania. Perhaps even listen to music conducted by the famous conductor Sergio Celibidache from Romania.
He was a genius and not a trick thief like some other Romanians. Personally I have no grudge against your country.
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W
wolly
Enthusiast
Silver Level
@Jean-Guy
Then why didn't You warned me before?
If romanians are treated like criminals I don't want to be raped or killed in prison
I don't want to scam You but this îs what someone from the discord server said :
The pertinent legislation is this:
```2.2.3. »Førstegangsarbejdssøgende«
EU-borgere kan frit rejse til et andet EU-land for at søge arbejde. Da kontanthjælp og starthjælp ikke er en særlig støtte til arbejdssøgning, har EU-borgere, der søger arbejde i Danmark som førstegangsarbejdssøgende, ikke ret til denne hjælp. Sådanne »førstegangsarbejdssøgende« er således EU-borgere, der søger arbejde, men endnu ikke har fundet arbejde, der har givet dem status som arbejdstager i opholdslandet.```
Which basically means that you are not entitled to unemployment benefits, if you have no previous employment in Denmark.
Discord îs a chat server where You talk with others! I didn't want to offend You!I mean it!
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wolly
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Jeg har meget sympati for dig. Det har jeg. Men man kan ikke bare komme her til Danmark uden en grund. Hvis det var muligt så ville vi blive oversvømmet med folk fordi millioner af mennesker ville se Danmark som en gavebod og så ville alt vi har gået og opbygget ryge til jorden meget hurtigt.
Der skal være flere der betaler end folk der har brug for at tage.
Der skal være flere der betaler end folk der har brug for at tage.