View: Beginners should spend 100% of their time on study

Beginners should not be allowed to play at all. Get these amateurs and their mistakes and gamble off my teables. Ty and please come back when u r an robot.

When i played as a pro, I started by playing 40 hours a week while also studying 40 hours a week. It was a lot of fun because I was single, young, had the time to dedicate like that, and I was terrified of getting a real job. I play as a hobbyist now, study never, play maybe 6-7 times a month and I’ve still won at 20bb/hr in life games since 2019 when i stopped playing full time.

I wouldn’t say 100% study that’s kind of dumb, just play the lowest stakes you can if your bankroll is light. It’s ok to punt in a tiny game.

If you’re playing against someone with RTA online yeah you need to do constant study and have a better rakeback deal to beat them but in a live game like 85% of what determines if you’ll win has nothing to do with studying the game.

Lol

I dont play NLHE, just mixed games.

I prefer to play 90% and study 10%. I think adjusting to 70/30 would be better but it's hard to study various games. The bulk of my earnings comes from omaha variants though (PLO, PLO8, NLO8, and Big O).

And studying is a bit complicated. I would need a programmer to code a custom solver for all the important variants if I wanted to turn pro (one for draw, one for stud8, one for Big O but I'm not rich so thats not going to happen. And besides, those games do not run often enough at high stakes to make it a worthwhile investment. My best bet is using ProPokerTool Odds Oracle in conjunction with going over my hand histories).

The only game that I should and will start studying more is PLO because I can earn the most if I progress in that variant. And with PLO I'd say studying 40% and playing 60% of the time in the beginning would be optimal. Then grind and play more mid stakes. If i ever reach relatively high stakes, such as $10/20 or $25/$50+ I think i would have to revert back to 60% play and 40% study so I dont fall behind other players at those stakes. Plus, GTO & exploitable tendencies become much more vital at those stakes I think.

These are just assumptions however and more of a road map for if I ever try to go "pro".

Out of curiosity, what knowledge did you have on NLHE prior to that first 5NL hand? Did you sit down at the tables (figuratively slo) absolutely cold – that is, having never seen it on TV, or read an article, or talked to a more experienced friend about the game?

If so, then yeah, I can see why you struggled even at 5 NL, and why it took some time away from the tables. I wouldn't think hitting GTOWizard was necessary to beat 5NL but it certainly helped you down the road at higher stakes if your win rate is accurate.

When I first started, I used play money games to get a feel for how the game actually works. But I read two poker books and consumed a decent amount of strategy/advice (by early 2000s standards) before ever playing a single hand of real money, so I can see where you're coming from. Definitely helped going into 5NL and 10NL and especially low-stakes SNGs with a decent foundation. I also never really sought to move up: for me, poker was a fun game that happened to provide some beer-and-pizza cash on the side. A video game might be more fun but there's no money to be made by spending hours at (say) PGA Tour 2004 on a PS2. Working a second job at minimum wage would have resulted in a more consistent earn, but I envisioned no joy in bagging groceries or scooping ice cream.

In fact, it's fair to say that photography replaced poker on both counts. I find it more enjoyable and more lucrative, plus it absolutely helped me in my regular day job when social media became a thing.

To answer your question, if you see poker not as a game but rather solely as a means to earn money, then I can agree that a good chunk of someone's first months or even year is better served on solvers and such. To me, that doesn't sound the least big enjoyable, and after a while, I think I'd just opt for the $20/hour at the nearby In-N-Out.

It's mostly intuitive, if you have talent.

That's plain cheating. Only because others do it, too, it's not any better at all. You are everything that's wrong with poker these days.

Do you realize that your sample of less than 300k hands at 4.1bb on a fish-tank site could easily mean that you are actually break even, or a slightly losing player at those stakes?
What will you do, if bovada doesnt offer in your area anymore? You think you could beat ACR, Pokerstars or so?

Maybe someone winning at nl50+ can chime in, and finally tell you what you want to hear so badly...

Since you are asking for a friend, as i understood... just point him to this thread

I played at soft college parties. My first cash game was in high school, i lost ten dollars and didnt think about it much. After playing in college in my first 30 sessions i was a winner in 26 of them. This was during the height of the boom. The idea of seriously learning poker at 5nl does not compute. six four is right. dont do what everyone else is doing. Instead of playing in a game where you need anything close to gto, just play a different game rather than 5 nl. learn actual strategy rather than rote memorization. omaha hi lo split is easily profitable at low limits and doesnt require range vs range 0.001 push equity. If you cant play o8, play bridge or a different card game. learn to be a card player, not some obscure theories designed for people who play 100/200nl playing near unexploitable poker for 8 cents an hour.

Using GTO Wizard at any stakes is going to be beneficial. Most microstakes zoom pools are complete nitfests now.

and what gto wizard would tell you to do in a "nitfest" would literally set money on fire

The Wizard is also a nit, you don't exploit nits by being a nit. If you're playing GTO at nl5 you're leaving money on the table.

I didn't mean you should (necessarily) do what GTO Wizard tells you. I just suggested that by using GTO Wizard, you might gain a better understanding of theoretically sound poker, which in turn would help you at any stake.

Beginners should just relax and have fun.

NLHE is too studied to get by on "talent" these days. Maybe in the 2003-2011 pre solver/pre mda era you could do that.

You will get wrecked if you play online and don't study. That is 100% a fact.

You should never play like GTO Wizard does. DUCY?

I know.

honestly pretty impressive if he does beat bovada at 4bb recently with the massive amount of bots and collusion going on

could just be running hot though

coach is right. best way to get good is to text every hand to your coach and they will fix leaks on the spot

I will say this, when I stopped doing a massive amount of study every week it was because I was lucky enough to make friends with an extremely good cash game player and he started coaching me. It accelerated my game a lot faster than studying was. A coach will give you insights a solver can’t, my coach is in the casinos all day every day and gives me tips on where the best games are, what games I shouldn’t bother playing in, etc. Even though I play a lot less now, I still text my big hands to him for a line check when I do play.

No maybe about it. You could absolutely print money in the heyday of online poker just being a nit. If you actually had talent you'd be swimming in money.

Can anyone tell me what gto wizard actually is? Ive only looked at it briefly and could be wrong. It seems like a browser based piocalculator lite for small stack sizes. What language was it programmed in? does it work with sql ? What other games can you use it for? What kind of combinatorial things can it do? does it have a scripting language? Why would someone use it? It appears, and I dont gave a premium membership , but it appears limited. As far as I know you wont beat high stakes with it, or any stake optimally.

I am still beating the games and I did decent amount of coaching back in the day(pre-solver).

I don't think there is a correct answer. Some people learn by doing much more than others. Some can learn theory/MDA/concepts... off the felt and just apply them in-game better than others. I feel like playing can provide practice, motivation, and mistakes to learn from. I think some people would struggle with just a heavy study schedule. Knowing what to do and doing it in-game are two different things.

I would suggest starting with 50% play and 50% study - planning to adjust this along the way.

They should but they won't.

99% of them want to learn by losing money, the successful ones intuitively understand what OP is talking about and get into watching the best/learning from the best right away.

The best players study but also have a lot of natural ability which can't be taught.

Best players are best because they study the most. Exception does not make the rule here.

100% of time on study, 0% on playing poker. Sounds like the nut low for having fun and enjoyment from the game.

Not true.
Poker is a skill. With any skill in life work and practice matters. So does actual innate ability.
If we study as much as Ike Haxton for example he's still gonna be way better than us.

Everyone has a ceiling. The harder/smarter you work the closer to your ceiling you'll reach. But everyone's ceiling is different.