This is going to take a lot of time and tracking, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.
It is commonly believed that in order to become an expert at something, one must practice that particular thing for 10,000 hours. For poker, I believe that can be a bit misleading, because 10,000 hours doesn't necessarily mean actually playing - for all the time spent at a table, a good portion of it is in hands that are folded pre-flop.
I was about to go into a calculation of how many hands I would actually need to play to reach the magical mark, but the more I think about it, I realize there is plenty of value in those hands that are folded pre-flop. As long as the player concentrates on how the hand plays out, there is still plenty of value to be had. This could come in the form of seeing how other players act, and/or how you could have played the hand differently.
This brings me back to the comment I mentioned previously about Greg Merson having seen over 7 million hands during online play. I didn't realize it at the time, but the key word there is "seen" - not "played. So, that makes my calculations a bit easier going forward, as I try to reach 10,000 hours.
However, I don't want to completely ignore what I have already done. While it is an understatement to say I play differently now than when the SFPT first started in 2004, it can't be completely discounted. After all, those tournaments and the hands therein are what helped get me where I am now. I want to keep things as conservative as possible with my estimates; if I end up having actually played over 10,000 hours when I say I've reached that mark, that is to my benefit.
That being said, if I say an average of 1 hour per SFPT tournament, I will credit myself with 91 home game hours. In the future, I will be more accurate with my estimates. If I'm out first, it might be an hour (or less); but if I make it to heads-up, it could be 3 or more.
I also don't want to discount the hands I've seen online, though I don't have any records for those prior to this year's FTP re-launch. So, I will go only by this year and beyond, and again, make a conservative estimate. Call it 5 online hours.
Perhaps my best experience thus far (in terms of value to my game) has come in actual casino play, in a grand total of two sessions: one each cash and tournament. I'm going to call it 1 hour live cash and 1 hour live tournament, and I think that's pretty accurate.
So, that makes the grand total 98 hours. Wow - lots of work to do until 10,000. But that's good, because I have a lot of improvement to make.
It's funny, and also a little eerie: for a long time I have felt that the best way to learn something was to just do it, dating all the way back to when I played Little League baseball. Now, I have a chance to do just that. Combine that with continued reading and research, and I'm excited to see where this leads.
UPDATE: I played some online this afternoon, and was pretty successful: a win in a 27 person SNG (first victory in that size tournament), and a second in a 9 person, 2000 buy-in (highest buy-in yet). I also played a 6 person turbo and finished 5th, thanks to my pocket kings losing out to Ah/10c when the board played out to quad 10's. What was cool about that was the reaction of the winner: an obviously sarcastic "in your face :P, after which we chatted for a moment and wished each other good luck. I like that - a bit of the live game, brought online.
Today's totals: 2 online hours
Running totals: 7 online hours, 100 total hours
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Does Play Money Have Value?
Full Tilt is back up and running, and I had a chance yesterday to play a little. To start, I multi-tabled with two SNGs, a 90 person and a six-handed single table. It had been since well before Black Friday since I'd played online, but it didn't take me long to remember one of the reasons I had started to shy away from it.
Put simply, people play like idiots.
There's no question that people play differently when it's not real money on the line. I see that on Full Tilt, I see it on the WSOP app we have on the Kindle, and I'm sure its the same everywhere. For a long time, even at the beginning yesterday, I wondered if it was worth it for me. Should I spend my time on the play money sites, or would that time be better served reading, watching videos, and doing other research?
Ultimately, I decided it IS worth the time. For one, with my vast inexperience, I just need to see hands. I remember hearing during this year's ME final table that Greg Merson had seen 7 million hands of poker, online. Staggering. The discussion went on to emphasize how beneficial this was in Merson's improvement as a player. Obviously, I'm never going to see that many hands, but there is value in seeing as many as I can - knowing when to get involved in pots and when to get out, how to play relative to my position, raising patterns, etc.
For two, despite the fact that there are people who play like idiots, it doesn't take long in one of the SNGs for those people to be weeded out. Invariably, there are three or four people who go all-in on the first hand, but by about five hands are so, things have calmed down a bit and it resembles something more like a real tournament. This was the case with the 9-handed SNG I played to end my session: it didn't take long for it to get down to five players, counting myself, all of whom seemed like they were playing, for lack of a better term, "normally".
I finished second in that tournament, and was proud of the way I played: no stupid decisions, and I lost heads-up when I pushed short stacked in the small blind and my opponent's Jc/7c beat my Qh/Jh thanks to a rivered 7.
That was my best result; I was out 20th in the 90 person and actually dead last in the six-handed, though I didn't play poorly there either. I also played around with some PLO and found it interesting; I wasn't very successful but I think I could be in the future. But first things first - to get to a point where my NLH game is more respectable, both in tournament and cash games.
Put simply, people play like idiots.
There's no question that people play differently when it's not real money on the line. I see that on Full Tilt, I see it on the WSOP app we have on the Kindle, and I'm sure its the same everywhere. For a long time, even at the beginning yesterday, I wondered if it was worth it for me. Should I spend my time on the play money sites, or would that time be better served reading, watching videos, and doing other research?
Ultimately, I decided it IS worth the time. For one, with my vast inexperience, I just need to see hands. I remember hearing during this year's ME final table that Greg Merson had seen 7 million hands of poker, online. Staggering. The discussion went on to emphasize how beneficial this was in Merson's improvement as a player. Obviously, I'm never going to see that many hands, but there is value in seeing as many as I can - knowing when to get involved in pots and when to get out, how to play relative to my position, raising patterns, etc.
For two, despite the fact that there are people who play like idiots, it doesn't take long in one of the SNGs for those people to be weeded out. Invariably, there are three or four people who go all-in on the first hand, but by about five hands are so, things have calmed down a bit and it resembles something more like a real tournament. This was the case with the 9-handed SNG I played to end my session: it didn't take long for it to get down to five players, counting myself, all of whom seemed like they were playing, for lack of a better term, "normally".
I finished second in that tournament, and was proud of the way I played: no stupid decisions, and I lost heads-up when I pushed short stacked in the small blind and my opponent's Jc/7c beat my Qh/Jh thanks to a rivered 7.
That was my best result; I was out 20th in the 90 person and actually dead last in the six-handed, though I didn't play poorly there either. I also played around with some PLO and found it interesting; I wasn't very successful but I think I could be in the future. But first things first - to get to a point where my NLH game is more respectable, both in tournament and cash games.
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