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August 2 — I’d rather be the best in the world at beating bad players than beating good players

Unless you are planning on playing some of the toughest games in the world, most of the money that you will win in poker comes from beating bad players. This is even true at the nosebleed levels as games rarely go nowadays without at least one giant spot at the table.

Because of this, especially at the mid-stakes, you should really concentrate on being the best “fish fryer” that you possibly can be, since that is where ninety percent of your money will come from. Work on optimizing your lines against these weak players and sucking up all of the money you possibly can. Often, players concentrate on the wrong thing — that is they spend way too much time and mental energy paying attention to the other good players at the table. Why would I want to mix it up with someone else who is a big winning player, when all of the dead money that we are fighting for comes from the other players? Those are the players that you should be paying attention to the most, as they are the ones that are paying the bills. 

This is especially true if you are playing $5 dollar big blind cap games and below. There usually will be only one or maybe two other good players at the table. The rest will be recreational players just waiting to give their money away. In these games, it is a race to see who can extract that dead money first. Spend your time studying the bad players. What are their tendencies, what are their patterns? Do they give off any tells? Do they play in a different manner when they tilt? You will find that if you get really good at beating up on the bad players you will achieve a top win rate at your level.

August 4 — In capped games, your hourly is directly related to your stack size and time you play at the table

An interesting quandary that comes about from playing a lot of small-level live no-limit hold’em is the fact that the smaller capped games are actually harder to beat than the larger ones. How can this be? It’s pretty simple. The rake, especially in flat drop games, is so high in proportion to the average stack size and the blinds that you have to be very good in order to over come it. In fact, in some games, the drop is absolutely impossible to beat.  There are a couple of entry level no-limit structures in Southern California that are $1-$2 no-limit tables with an $80 or even $40 cap buy-in. These games drop as much sometimes as a normal $2-$5 game. 

And, by the way, your hourly in these types of games is definitely not constant. The main way that you earn a lot in these types of capped games is when the stacks get deep. And, unfortunately, in the tiny games with the high rake it is next to impossible to get deep since most of the money is getting dropped off of the table.  

The same concept applies at the higher-stakes cap games, but because you can start with larger stacks in proportion to the blinds, sometimes as much as 100 or 200 big blinds, you definitely can get deep with other people. That is why, if you want to be someone who is profitable in the cap games, you have to be willing to put in long sessions to increase your win rate. David Chan, an instructor for my live cash-training site, Seatopenpoker.net, drove this home to me. He cut his teeth and built his bankroll moving up from severely restricted capped games. The simple fact of the matter is you must get deep in these games to have a good win rate, and in order to get deep, most of the time you have to put in long sessions. So if you are thinking about an overall approach to playing these types of capped cash games, plan on putting in a lot of time in each individual session and do not hit and run.

August 8 — The EV of happiness and stability is sometimes vastly underrated in poker

Figuring out an accurate hourly for a certain level of no-limit game is one of the most common questions that I get. In theory, we would always want to play in the game that would give us the highest hourly, just as long as we understand our bankroll limitations and our risk of ruin. However, we are not robots, and there are other factors that go into game selection besides strict expected value (EV).

Playing in Southern California has definitely taught me this concept. I remember back in 2008 and 2009 right when the Commerce Casino introduced $5-$10 $1,500 cap no-limit, the game was absolutely amazing. Before, they only had $2-$5/$200 cap and $5-10/$400 cap at the upper end of their restricted buy-in games.  So, suddenly, when they introduced this pseudo deep-stacked game, it was a gold mine. Now, there are big games, $10-$20 and $20-$40 no limit, which are still somewhat strong, but nowhere near as good as that $5-$10 no-limit game. 

It was very rare that the top win rate in the bigger games would be even fifty percent higher than the top win rates in the $5-$10 game, and a few good players could make almost as much in $5-$10 as they could in $10-$20. Think of it, would you rather play in a game that affected your life day to day where there was tons of pressure, or would it be better to play a smaller game that is enjoyable, stress free, and where you could make almost the same amount of money?

Especially for professionals, consistency and quality of life is a major consideration. For me, one of my biggest problems has always been being motivated enough to play throughout a prolonged losing streak. Let us say that I can make $100 per hour in a $10-$20 game and $75 an hour at $5-$10. In the lower game, I rarely feel stress and a big losing session is an anomaly. I have no problem putting in my 30 hours a week on a consistent basis. However, at $10-$20, I commonly go on $15,000 or $20,000 downswings, and I only have the motivation to put in 25 hours per week. You can see that my actual overall amount of money won is only slightly more at $10-$20 due to the fact that I play fewer hours and my quality of life is a lot worse. People vastly underestimate happiness and mental peace of mind when they are playing full time for a living. You should strive to find the level that is the best fit for you — not based solely upon amount of money earned per hour. ♠

Follow Bart for daily strategy tips on twitter @barthanson. Check out his podcast “The Seat Open Podcast” on seatopenpoker.net and his video training site specifically for live No Limit players ­—CrushLivePoker.com. He also hosts Live at the Bike every Tuesday and Friday at 10:30 pm ET at LiveattheBike.com.