tips for a young player
whats up guys,
so i just turned 18 this February and started playing online cash (mainly 7-max on coinpoker because it allows 18 year olds to play). I began at 10NL and moved up to 50NL after consistently winning for a few months—currently playing about 6 tables max at a time. I’ve been making ~$80–100/week but feel like my edge has dropped off a bit since moving up.
I'm using GTO Wizard for study (mainly the trainer and hand review tools), but I’m not sure I’m getting the most value from it. I feel stuck on how to use it effectively for actual improvement.
I also play some live games:
Small home games with friends (crushing those)
Occasional 1/2 home games with older players (struggling there)
I've taken two trips to an 18+ cardroom played approximately 60 hrs and averaged around 10bb/hr.
I’d really appreciate any advice on:
How to study smarter with GTO tools
Improving at “poker math” (pot odds, equity, etc.)
Building a more structured learning routine
Managing the mental side when moving up in stakes
I know this is a bit long, so thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to respond!
8 Replies
whats up guys,so i just turned 18 this February and started playing online cash (mainly 7-max on coinpoker because it allows 18 year olds to play). I began at 10NL and moved up to 50NL after consistently winning for a few months—currently playing about 6 tables max at a time. I’ve been making ~$80–100/week but feel like my edge has dropped off a bit since moving up.I'm using
Hi landob, I have some advice. I also was a winning poker player who made my first posts on twoplustwo at the age of 18.
My first piece of advice is to recognize that older gamblers will give you lots of bad advice, but not everyone, and even those that do might sometimes give you ideas and truths worth their weight in gold. The point is, you will get a lot of bad advice about poker and any other form of gambling but you should be patient with those who supply it.
Second, taking your posts at face value it sounds like you have a modicum of natural talent but no formal understanding of combinatorics, “poker math”, or game theory. I use the word modicum because if what you say is true then there is at least a sliver of talent there, but that might never be the talent needed to say, play profitably in 10k buy in games, or even 1k buy in games.
What you need to do at this juncture is not focus on results, but instead increase your understanding of the mathematical underpinnings of the game and that requires real work. You need to hire a tutor to speed this up. Once you know a lot about game theory and the underlying math your natural talent will run into much less walls. This is the time to patch that up, not later. Study more and play less. for now.
There are many tutorials online about how to study better with gto tools and you should watch them. This is where understanding the underlying math can help, it helps you understand what and why you’re doing in terms of evaluating certain spots. gto wizard is ultimately just an internet wrapper for actual solver software like piosolver and once your bankroll is there you need to learn proper solver usage, particularly in spots you’ve thought about without a solver during live games a lot.
On those last two points, ultimately you need to decide you want to put real work which not everyone can do.
More important than any of the previous advice is to not worry about poker so much and instead work on yourself. Make sure poker leaves room not only for your family and friends but also to have enough time to seriously pursue other interests.
There are two approaches to poker that you can take, and now is a good time to think seriously about which of them is a better fit for you.
The first of these is to make poker your profession and rely on poker for most, if not all of your income. This typically sounds great, especially to a young person. After all, you can work when you want, no boss telling you what to do, and you feel like you can make limitless money this way. There are pitfalls to this, however. To be successful with this route, you must not only learn the technical details of poker, all the math and everything, but you also must learn to be extremely disciplined financially. You had some good results to start out your poker career, but I can guarantee that if you play enough poker, no matter how good you are, you will have downswings, and very likely some severe ones. Will you be prepared to go weeks, or maybe months with essentially zero income? Do you have the discipline to save money during the times when you are winning to carry you through the downswings? Are you winning enough during good stretches to do so, or are you winning only enough to meet your life expenses (food, bills, rent, etc)? It can get pretty stressful when you get into a downswing; will this affect your play?
If you think you have this kind of discipline, great, give it a shot. If it doesn’t work out, you are young; you can pursue the much less stressful second approach, which is to get a more traditional job and play poker as a hobby and use it as side income. If you go that route, just make sure you keep your “life money” separate from your “poker money” and don’t play with money you cannot afford to lose.
It may even be a better plan to start with the second route and play as a hobby. If you have another income source to cover expenses, you might even be able to stash away some of your poker winnings to give yourself a buffer if you do want to switch to the pro route later on. Additionally, you would give yourself more time to improve your play. Both of those factors would make success as a pro much more likely than just jumping right into playing professionally.
Hi landob, I have some advice. I also was a winning poker player who made my first posts on twoplustwo at the age of 18. My first piece of advice is to recognize that older gamblers will give you lots of bad advice, but not everyone, and even those that do might sometimes give you ideas and truths worth their weight in gold. The point is, you will get a lot of bad advice about
thank you so much for the advice, ive been watching the "pokerphd" on youtube for his explanations of poker math and pot odds etc, my dad also is a big cash game reg and so hes been helping me go through hand histories and what not. but to your last point i am at that point right now where i am focusing more time on poker than other interest, and have realized that and have actually sat it to the side for the time being (at least playing bigger tables i still play a couple 10NL tables a day for fun) but have began focusing more on the studying side of things in order to build my edge and increase my ability before an upcoming poker trip i have in about a month
Do not have a "grind" mentality
There are two approaches to poker that you can take, and now is a good time to think seriously about which of them is a better fit for you.The first of these is to make poker your profession and rely on poker for most, if not all of your income. This typically sounds great, especially to a young person. After all, you can work when you want, no boss telling you what to do, and
i have thought thoroughly on this, as i am starting college in the fall. i have told myself that i am going to put my school work first as that is what is most important at this point in my life, but i also want to continue to improve and study poker so that i do have hopefully somewhat of an income stream through poker while in school as i will not have the time for a normal job, while there. thank you for the reply!
The days where playing lots of tables for long times to accumulate a large amount of hands for rakeback are dead. Playing in such a manner is a sure fire way to hit burnout levels quickly and simply play suboptimally. Only play as many tables as you can while still paying attention to the games and not autopiloting, and only play for a length of time where you actually have a work/school/poker/life balance. You're ****ing 18, the game is not going anywhere, don't play it in such a way that by the time you are 20 you don't want to play another hand ever
While I was in my early 20's in college, I got heavily into poker. School became very low priority, and I even dropped out for several months and mostly supported myself with poker. I was a winning player, but it wasn't enough money and the lifestyle was a downer.
I went back to school, got an advanced degree, and have made more in my career than I ever would have playing poker. Now, I can afford to work limited hours in my job, and play alot of poker with no bankroll worries. I'm a decent player, my win rate is >11BB/hr at live $3/$/5 NL over my last 1000 hours. If I wasn't financially very comfortable, it would be absurd for me to play poker for money when my occupation pays much much more per hour.
I think that if you are smart enough to be a poker crusher, but you are willing to work as hard at your career as you are at poker, you will make much more money with a non-poker career. I live in a very affluent area, and 80% of my neighbors have millions and millions of dollars. Have they been lucky? Probably, but they also are smart and more importantly have worked hard, and have been heavily rewarded.
My son is 20 and loves poker. He's done well online, and crushes home games at his college. But he's also a very good student so I know that he can make way more money in a non-poker career, as long as he puts in the work.
Bottom line, enjoy poker, but at this stage in your life be careful with your priorities.
As for improving, poker math is really important. Reading a book or other written materials is really helpful. Podcasts. Mastering the basics is really important for live play, where the games are much softer than online games.
