Starting Poker

1) Yes it's tougher now
2) I wouldn't worry about HEM until it costs less than 1 buyin for you to get it. Plenty high stakes players don't use a HUD at all, it just helps you mass multitable, paying attention to fewer tables will get the same "feel" for how each player is playing that a hud will.
3) You will improve with 10k hands per month. If you spend time away from the tables thinking about the game you will improve. If you post hand histories for review and take the advice seriously you will improve. I would grind the micros until you have a sound fundamental feel for the game.
4) I wouldn't worry about your tendencies as much as your opponents' tendencies in poker. Often you will be paying more attention than your opponents are anyways, so if you notice what they're doing and adjust to it, you will be exploitable...but you will be exploiting them so you shouldn't worry about it imo.

GL and welcome.

thewh00sel, thanks for taking the time to respond buddy, I really appreciate it.

I've read some of your blogs. The next book on my list to read is Rich Dad Poor Dad, I am currently busy with The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho.

I will definately be reading on LP more often and will let you guys know on my progress. It won't be as fast as the others.. as soon as I have some significant numbers I will start posting results etc.

Thewhoosel is right but regarding HEM , HS players wht don't use HEM can do it because the player pool is really small.
I would not invest 50% of my roll in a tracker tho ...
There are probably free trial ...
Oh and if you don't play at poker stars , rakeback is really important
(Playing low stake at PS is a bad idea btw)

Waga,

Shit! stars is where my roll is. I thought these stars VPP > Rakeback (Maybe I might be totally confused and its more +EV than rakeback for higher stakes players only). I will look into a site that offers a descent rake back I'm assuming 33% or more is the one to go for (Cake or something like that). Thanks for telling me this.

I wouldn't play on cake, scummy network with a bad rep.

what nickname in q3/QL?

also, gl !

//Z4muZ

HEM and PT both have free trial periods of something like 30-60 days.

Welcome to LP~

Don't forget to follow the weekly MMA threads in the General forum.

@Mariuslol which network would you suggest?

@gruggle nickname in quake was lickwidice unfortunately there have only been 2-3 good players in my country to compete with. Best in my county is/was ph4ntom. Been out of it the last couple of years because I have a 3G connection (100ms). I still can't believe that you are Z4muZ. I followed you religiously from 2003-2005. I think you guys won ESWC 2004. Rocket and LG God. If I lived in Swe I'd play Q3/QL over Poker anyday :D

@Smuft thanks for letting me know. What is everyone leaning towards? PT or HEM? I only plant to play holdem and maybe later on a little bit of PLO

@PuertoRican Sweet man... will check it out.

Svenska Spel maybe, or Stars, safest with Star.

1: Those sample sizes are nearly totally irrelevant, as a newbie the first thing to get your head round will be the immense variance. But yes, they are harder.

2: What whoosel said. I'd even recommend not using a HUD even if you had one while you start even if you have one - you will pick up on a lot of tendencies that people have (and tendencies that you can assume they have from seeing them perform x) that HUD robots don't understand. However I think using a database to analyse your own play and leaks is very very important. HEM is much more than just the head and you can do many filters and stuff to find out in what exact spots you are leaking.

3: Don't concentrate on numbers of hands or multitabling or grinding, that is for grinding out money at a worthwhile limit for profit, just concentrate on learning.

4: Great insight! Way too many people fall into this trap to a greater or lesser extent and you have observed it in yourself. Forget rules and all that shit and try and understand WHY you should do something and then you will be able to adapt it when necessary.

Further to point 4, get an equity calculator and work stuff out for yourself. Don't follow any rule you see unless you can substantiate using logic and mathematics.

5: Beating 200NL at 2BB/100 is difficult and since I don't know you, I can say only on average that you almost certainly won't make it, but if you do it will require a huge amount of work and also study away from the table.

Good luck to you!

@Oly Thanks for the response.

1) What is a legit sample size to measure my performance?

2) I agree with whoosel and yourself in the sense that I won't autopilot and rather use my brain to pickup different players tendencies and play styles. I do however feel that I would need to eventually get it to identify leaks and see which hands I play very badly or maybe im leaking from a certain position or something like that. So what i'll do is just try and find the optimal time to buy HEM ni the mean time im going to use the 30-60 day free trial and see how it goes.

3) I'll try not to, I only want to improve my game so that I can be "ahead" of the curve if you know what I mean. I want to get to the point where I no longer need to rely on TAG to work... i'd like to eventually try exploit the game by using a super laggy game play and still be a winning player

4) I'm constantly trying to look for situations where I need to ask WHY this is done? and till today I keep finding these situations looking at other peoples hand histories. 90% of the time don't have the answer... but if I wait long enough I see other peoples responses and then make an educated decision as to which one is the most correct.

5) I know this is bad of me to say but knowing myself and the time I have beating 200NL seems a bit far fetched now. But if I can get there and beat lower stakes on my way up maybe I might stand a slight chance.

likwidice: Yea, QL/Q3 is pretty much better than poker but...the quakescene is kinda dead and theres not that much money to get anymore.

Its a long time ago since I even logged into my QL account =( But I still follow the big few tournaments out there, really nice to watch!