Best games for us fish to play to have a chance of winning in the long run?

[scotty77]

Smaller field MTTs is prob the way to go.

Quite often the smaller fields are seen as 'bowl' comps by the best pros so they either avoid them or when they are having a bad session they mess around in them to let off the steam.  You'll also find many of the same recreational players in the same games day in day out.

Cash games as low as 10/20nl are pretty reg heavy on all networks nowadays.  Obviously always exceptions.  Does help if you do your homework in the lobby and find out who's a reg or not.

SnGs prob the most reg heavy on stars I'd guess, certainly on smaller networks tho you are still gonna find a lot of main recreational player games although the odd reg 24 tabling across multi sites and timing out will make the games a pain sometimes.

Still no reason why a recreational player with solid fundamentals can't still hold their own, but much like a pro, it is gonna be about game selection.  You can't just load up any random 100nl table on any site and expect to be at a fairly level playing field now.

And of course any huge field low BI Turbo MTT on stars is often gonna be decent value.  It's rare that you'll see many 'good' players in the last 20 or so of the Storm/Big11.

[dreenie]

Blackjack.

Only if you know that splitting two 7's when dealer shows a 6 is +ev and winning play in the 'long term'.

[muckthenuts]

It's got to be tournaments for the recreational player. Online cash feels pretty much out of the question with the rake/regginess/general zzzzzz factor of small stakes over the long term.

[Rexas]

Furthermore (sorry for posting like this, I'm kinda writing as I think) it's not impossible to learn to become a winning player. If I go back to January this year, I was a losing player at every poker variant online. I was also a losing player in some of the live cash games I was playing. I was effectively stopping myself from learning by A) kidding myself that it was just a downswing and B) believing that this stuff was way too complicated for anyone normal (ok, slightly retarded) (ok, more than slighty) (ok, I'm eating my shoulder atm, stfu) to start learning. Over the last 6 months, I've gone from being a loser at 10nl to being a definite winner at 50nl without spending 10 hours a day looking through obscure maths problems. A lot of the time when I see these sorts of threads, and players who used to be winners but now just can't hack it, this quote comes to my mind:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us."

What do you think are the biggest things you've changed since january to go from "a loser at 10nl to being a definite winner at 50nl"? I never really play online but would like to start, so any advice would be welcome!

A couple of things really, but I guess it comes down to accepting that I wasn't as good as I thought I was, and then looking at the decisions I've made as objectively as possible. Don't really put hands down to coolers any more, and I try to post any hands I'm not sure about.

From an enjoyment perspective, I've got a bit of a schedule. I enforce a break after every hour, and I enforce at least one day of absolutely 0 poker a week. I also try and have something that I'm trying to improve each week, which is great because you can go back and actually watch yourself improve week on week. So this week, for example, I've been looking more closely at my play from the big blind, and I've been making decisions from that seat that are much better than those I was making last week, and it feels pretty cool to see that improvement.

[pleno1]

thing is in mtts all the money is at the end game and even if its a small bi field, the cream still usually rises and you get regs who will be there and will be very good on the final.

some of the biggest mistakes an amateur can make is on a final table.

[david3103]

thing is in mtts all the money is at the end game and even if its a small bi field, the cream still usually rises and you get regs who will be there and will be very good on the final.

some of the biggest mistakes an amateur can make is on a final table.

I'm guessing you mean ICM, but

[rfgqqabc]

I think small stake mtts away from stars are an absolute goldmine with probably an above minwage hourly about. I played a morning session across all the sites and the 11am games on 888 were just incredible. There are still plenty of sites/times/tournies about if you forget wanting to win 50+ buyins for first. Playing peak times in the evening might make things harder but I'm sure 888/Sky/iPoker/Microgaming all have a decent enough selection of 26$ freezeouts and the like. Final table poker is the most fun, and you can become a small stakes pads winning in every session.

[SuuPRlim]

everyone missing the point here imo.

I think deciding where to play there should be a load more important factors to consider before where the softest stnd of play is, whether or not you're going to make a big ICM mistake is, or if there will be a gaggle of Pro players hunting you for your money.

The best thing about being a recreational player is that you can play poker without a legitimate expectation of profit, and because of this you can base decisions about where to play on much more pleasant criteria than pro players; playing DTD tonight cos that fit valet is working, going to play some 50p£1 and get smashed with my pal, going to play Gala tonight cos it's a 10minute walk and I can have a drink etc.

Spending too much time deliberating about the "value" of certains games just seems like a drain on the enjoyment of playing recreational poker to me. I've spoken to with loads of guys over the years and heard lots of different explanations for there motivation to play poker, from "gets me away from the wife one night a week" - "I just like trying to break some pro's soul" - "I really like playing" (simple I know!!)

Basically if you wanna win at poker then you have to play in games with weaker players than you, as B+W as that sounds, and if you've ever run a variance simulation (not something I'd advise as it's quite confusing and probably the dullest thing that it's possible to do lol) but you'd see that if you play poker sporadically over a year then the difference between a -10% and +10% ROI is irrelevant. I would focus my energy on where you want to play, where is most fun to play, what satisfies you most - fast action, low exposure, rowdy table banter, chance to win big money etc and playing well within your means instead of trying to find game that you feel are +EV, when they might still not be, and even if they are you'll never really be able to beat the variance, and if you're going to be at the mercy of variance then you need to get lucky anyways, may as well go to where you like playing, play with people you like playing against in games you want to play and just accept you need to be slightly luckier than you would be playing elsewhere!

[AlexMartin]

live mtt's surely, especially DTD sats given the value they still offer. Loads of good stuff in the 50-500 bracket that you can still have a few jars in and do well.

[pleno1]

why the hell were you grinding 888 bowl tournaments at 11am after a sunday?!

[arbboy]

why the hell were you grinding 888 bowl tournaments at 11am after a sunday?!

The same reason Ladbrokes shops open at 10am on the Monday after the world cup final is finished to offer bowl virtual dog racing and roulette pleasure to their clients.

[cambridgealex]

Great post Dave, agree 100%.

Btw, even as a "pro" when I was trying to get to know a certain someone I would often play at DTD if I knew she was working, or go to Gala if I knew she was going there on her day off So it's not just recs who think like this!

[Marky147]

Told ya Woodsey

[Woodsey]

Told ya Woodsey

lol I don't think I've ever been to a casino or to play poker to chase birds 

[SuuPRlim]

Great post Dave, agree 100%.

Btw, even as a "pro" when I was trying to get to know a certain someone I would often play at DTD if I knew she was working, or go to Gala if I knew she was going there on her day off So it's not just recs who think like this!

haha yeh.

Same with everything, I had a badminton game on Sunday but decided I was going to get hammered on Saturday night, because I'm pretty bad at badminton and the only reason I play is cos it's a laugh and I get to run around for 90minutes I'm not gonna let the fact i had a match next day stop me going out having fun. Obviously if i was a pro/serious badminton player I would have had a lime+soda or two at dinner and wished everyone a jolly night as I headed to bed at 10pm.