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skill v natural ability
How much natural ability do you need to be successful at this game.Can you read every book going watch every video.Learn every possible stratagy for every possible situation and still be no good.The reason i ask is because i must had done all the above.I no about premium hands position etc etc and still i lose i even lose at micro stakes.As i only play mainly micro stakes these days i can handle the losses but it can get a little tiring having to reload again and again.A while ago i had quite a run where i built up my stake to over £200 i thought it was skill but it was the most unbelievable run of good fortune and inevitably i ended up over time giving it all back.So i now reckon my bad play is the fact i have absolutely no natural ability whats so ever and after playing the game for 4 years now i realise i never will have.
Comments
10% Natural ability
I could turn anyone into a winning player at nl4 in 1 week.
Definatly check out Craigcu's diary, which shows his ups and downs playing low stake cash,4nl and 10nl.
Also, it's good you have read a lot/ studied up on poker, but sometimes it's hard gaining information from a book when a lot of it in a real game will depend on your opponents and reads.
Another good thing to do is use the poker clinic, at the end of a session load up your biggest winning hands and losing hands and loads of players will give you feedback on your hands/ positives or any mistakes made.
A brilliant way to help anyone improve!
Playing low stakes, start from scratch, play an ABC style of poker to start with and see how it goes. Biggest thing while playing low stakes, be really aggressive with your strong hands. If you get any resistance, re-evaluate, often when people show aggression at the lower stakes they have it. Don't be scared to fold Top pair good kicker, and even hands like 2 pair on scarey boards.
The interesting thing about poker is that of all of the players that understand this and that have studied as you have all of the books, videos and forums etc.... Pretty much none of them play 'optimally' we all adopt our own playing styles based around our understandings of the fundamental principles of the game. Therefore the skill of the game or the 'edge' you can gain over your opponents is not necessarily purely in a deeper understanding of the principles or the maths of the game, but in your ability to understand how your opponents are playing the game and making adjustments in your play to exploit their weaknesses.
This is where the very best players find their advantage and it's a real skill that definitely comes more easily to some than it does to others, but is certainly something that can be learned and improved upon by studying the game. I remember when I was first learning, I was watching a lot of poker on TV and I remember an interview with Phil Ivey where he was talking about gaining an edge over his opponents and improving his game. He said that in every single hand, even when he had folded and was not involved in the pot he would study the actions of every player at the table and would try to work out what hands they were playing, what their betting patterns meant, any habitual leaks or tells etc... It's something that's always stuck with me and something I've always tried to do myself and is a really great discipline to practice both to improve your hand reading ability and also to keep yourself fully focussed on the game.
Both are a skill to be developed, while GTO is heavily embedded in maths while expolit is soley game flow.
The greatest skill is to marry them together and you essentially have your prefect poker player
While a compupter in years to come may solve NL hold em, it could not solve expolitative game play.
So if in years to come when hold em is solved, who would be more profitable....
PC playing GTO
or
Human playing GTO & exploitative poker
...
If they played each other the PC would win hands down
I am saying if they were to go and play for a year versus humans who would be more profitable
Combine the skills together and boooooooooom!
unless you play perfect poker!
For instance, you're playing against someone who is literally just looking at their own hand and nothing else and is really loose/passive, what's the point in balancing our range? We don't need to, we just take them to value town when we have it, and dont' when we dont. It wouldn't be GTO to just check/fold a ton of missed flops then full pot it everytime we make top pair, but if it works against that player then exploitative play will win far more than GTO against that villian.
The more you veer away from GTO the more money you will lose
You can not exploit GTO
I don't think it's proven that GTO yields greater EV than exploitative poker
But likewise it is not proven exploitative poker yields greater EV than GTO
Think it's well proven that GTO woulld beat an exploitative player
rock paper scissors anyone
Cmon the best you can do is break even!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKm8LXwKnbs
The thread has went a bit off topic, so fwiw, I think it's almost all skills that can be learnt, even more so online. Certain people will have a head start in certain aspects but it can be learned.... I hope so anyway or I'm fooked lol
How do you know GTO is not more profitable
Tbf, I think it depends on the oppo. Take 4NL for instance, do we want to worry about being unexploitable and maybe giving up EV when most people aren't gonna exploit us anyway. Like do we really need to worry about the fact that against certain players when we overbet jam it's ALWAYS value?
For instance with 10xBB HU there is a range of hands you can shove where there is absolutely nothing your opponent can do to exploit it. If they go one way and tighten up then they lose cos we steal blinds more than they should allow, go the other way and loosen up with their calling range and they're getting it in bad too often. The only thing they can do is call with an equally unexploitable range and then no1 wins except the rake.