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A week in the life of Poker Pro, Snowbank

snowbank

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I've gotten a number of pms from people interested about poker wondering if you can make good money without having to invest a lot of money. Most people assume you have to be playing high stakes poker to make good money. How I play poker for a living is a lot different than most. I play a lot of tables at the same time, and actually play relatively small/mid stakes, but I play large volume(because of the number of hands I'm able to get in, and the large edge I have over my opponents as opposed to playing higher stakes where my edge would be smaller and I'd need to play less tables to focus more on the tougher opponents) I am posting this as inspiration for people, and to show that you don't need to have a huge bankroll and invest a ton of money to make good money from poker. Here are my last 7 days of playing(dated after July 30th to August 7th because I took the weekend off):

7daygraphnh8.png


This was done only playing $400 buy in tables(2/4 no limit). As I've said for a while on the forums, poker in my opinion if you are lacking capital is one of the best ways in the world to make money from almost nothing. I've told several of the people who've pmed me poker questions that I'll be making a very long poker post soon explaining how someone could start learning poker as a way to make money. It will be a very informative post about how to get started. I've been very busy working 10-14 hour days lately playing and working on a business I'm launching soon, but I will try to make the post in the next couple weeks. In the meantime, if you have any questions you'd want answered when I do make the post, post them in here and I'll make sure to include answers to them.
 
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Peter2

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Don't forget to add rakeback. :smxB:
 

biophase

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Bill transferred me $1 in pokerstars and I got it up to $1000. 100000% ROI. :)
 

snowbank

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Don't forget to add rakeback. :smxB:

haha. no doubt Peter. Didn't want to confuse people with rakeback stuff but I definitely keep note of the rb with all the hands I play.

The rakeback for these 7 days should work out to $1,865.61. Brings the total to around $25.5k.
 
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snowbank

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Bill transferred me $1 in pokerstars and I got it up to $1000. 100000% ROI. :)

I also lent him $200 to play craps and he ran it up to $700. Basically any money I loan out turns into a flow of money.

p.s. Don't you still owe me $100?
 

hakrjak

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Good stuff man -- keep it coming! So you average $10k a month, but you play 12 hours a day? Jeysus, you must have some carpal tunnel by now. You could use some of the magnetic wrist braces from my web store ;)

- Hakrjak
 

biophase

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Good stuff man -- keep it coming! So you average $10k a month, but you play 12 hours a day? Jeysus, you must have some carpal tunnel by now. You could use some of the magnetic wrist braces from my web store ;)

- Hakrjak

Ummm, that's 25k a week!
 
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snowbank

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Ummm, that's 25k a week!


Ha, ya. This is def. a good week though. I normally don't work a bunch of 12 hour days, no. Just been trying to get focused and get myself into grind mode to try and bank a lot of money by the end of the year. And yes, my wrists have hurt before; haha.
 

snowbank

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Just got a sick email. I sent the link to this post to someone I met at the fastlane meetup in Arizona. I did a poker presentation there, and they approached me afterwards asking some poker questions, saying they were interested in making money from poker, etc... We talked a bit, and have been speaking a bit through emails/pms since the meetup. They just told me they had their first $10,000 month last month! Really, really sick accomplishment starting up such a short while ago. Really shows what you can do if you just decide to do something.
 

veli

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Thanx for post snowbank. Awesome work!
Im not a pokerplayer myself (don't even know how to play it), but I have a lot of friends who play online; some break even, some small green, and most lose. But from what I gather this business has a couple of things in common with the stock market: know your risk and apply risk percentage to any buy ins you wanna do, and of course a safety net of stopping out when the odds are clearly in favour of the oppononet (even though if it means losing a bit of dough). One word seems important in this, as in most businesses, Discipline!
 
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aegis

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Your profile says you are located in Arizona. I assume this is online poker? How exactly is this legal?
 

hakrjak

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So Snowbank --

Is there a "Basic Strategy" that online poker players like you play in order to put the odds in your favor? Maybe you could post some details about this, because I've always been curious. Do you play in no limit tournaments also, or just low limit games? Do you reco utilizing any software programs for analyzing the odds? (I'm sure a guy that plays as much as you has the odds memorized by now!)

Cheers,

- Hakrjak
 

MJ DeMarco

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Great post Bill, can't wait to read more!!!
 
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bflash98

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Thanks for the information.

Nearly 7,000 hands a day. How do you keep things straight in your mind? I guess it comes with practice.
 

hakrjak

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Reminds me of the movie 21, about the MIT blackjack card-counting team. If you lose concentration for even 5 minutes, you could screw up the odds and blow big bucks. You must be like a monk -- mad focus...

- Hakrjak
 

snowbank

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Good stuff man -- keep it coming! So you average $10k a month, but you play 12 hours a day? Jeysus, you must have some carpal tunnel by now. You could use some of the magnetic wrist braces from my web store ;)

- Hakrjak

just noticed i had the date wrong(june 30th instead of july 30th) was wondering where you were getting that figure. fixed it, thanks.
 
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snowbank

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So Snowbank --

Is there a "Basic Strategy" that online poker players like you play in order to put the odds in your favor? Maybe you could post some details about this, because I've always been curious. Do you play in no limit tournaments also, or just low limit games? Do you reco utilizing any software programs for analyzing the odds? (I'm sure a guy that plays as much as you has the odds memorized by now!)

Cheers,

- Hakrjak

There's not 1 basic strategy. There is an "abc" type of play that a lot of small stakes players use, but as you progress you divert from playing straightforward abc poker to playing more advanced to increase your edge over the other players, and always try and be one step ahead. I used to play on autopilot and just go through the motions sometimes, but I've stopped doing that and my results have increased dramatically since then.......... If you know player A does this, now I can counter that by doing this, but if player B knows that I know that he does that, then I do something different. So it takes a lot of focus and practice to always stay one step ahead, to make sure that each hand I'm extracting the maximum value I can from my opponent, and if I think I might be behind, minimizing the potential loss. Like I was telling the person from the fastlane meetup I've been talking poker with: "If you play well pre-flop, your pre-flop game will set up your post-flop game, which is where you make the money. Post-flop, just maximize gains and minimize losses." Easy game right? :smx9: (I'll post a bit on how to actually go about learning these things when I make the post I mentioned.)

I rarely play tournaments. Cash games are much more profitable, and tournaments are kind of boring to me. As far as using software, personally I don't use any poker software, but am one of the only pros who don't. The program I posted my graph from was put on my computer by a guy I had a prop bet with to track my winnings for a crazy bet we had, so I have that on here but to post the graph was the only thing I've used it for. There are a bunch of programs that tell you pretty much anything you want to know about your game, the odds, your opponents games, equity spots, etc... I'll ask my friends what the best ones to recommend for starting out are.
 

hakrjak

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Great stuff man! I and others here really appreciate your contribution -- Speed+++

Another question -- I know guys who play as a "Team"... Where maybe 3 of them pool money, and get on a conference bridge line with their headsets. They join the same table, and share information with each other about what cards they are dealt, etc to try to increase their edge.

I know this is against the rules of all online poker rooms, but how do you feel about players that do this -- and does it really increase their edge that much to know what another 2 or 4 cards are?

How does this kind of thing impact your game when you're on a table with guys teaming up against you? I would have sworn I've been on tables where this has happened before, because my opponents were just TOO GOOD, and knew exactly when to hold / fold...

:hurray:

- Hakrjak
 

biophase

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How does this kind of thing impact your game when you're on a table with guys teaming up against you? I would have sworn I've been on tables where this has happened before, because my opponents were just TOO GOOD, and knew exactly when to hold / fold...

:hurray:

- Hakrjak

This always seems to be the case when you are playing against good players.
 
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hakrjak

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Me & Bio have been playing on Pokerstars for about 2 hours... Hitting the .25/.50 room for some practice. I'm down $8 bucks... haha.. At this rate, I'll never make $25k this month! lol...

-Hakrjak
 

Rawr

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Yeah whatever, you are probably the whitest kid in AZ right now. The important question is - can you still hit the 80% from 3? :D
 

snowbank

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Yeah whatever, you are probably the whitest kid in AZ right now. The important question is - can you still hit the 80% from 3? :D

haha. actually believe it or not, i have a bit of a tan. living at the shore for the rest of the summer so i'm not crazy white like usual.

i haven't played really any basketball since february, so i doubt i'd get near that right now. 81 was my best ever too, so would be really tough to top.
 
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snowbank

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Great stuff man! I and others here really appreciate your contribution -- Speed+++

Another question -- I know guys who play as a "Team"... Where maybe 3 of them pool money, and get on a conference bridge line with their headsets. They join the same table, and share information with each other about what cards they are dealt, etc to try to increase their edge.

I know this is against the rules of all online poker rooms, but how do you feel about players that do this -- and does it really increase their edge that much to know what another 2 or 4 cards are?

How does this kind of thing impact your game when you're on a table with guys teaming up against you? I would have sworn I've been on tables where this has happened before, because my opponents were just TOO GOOD, and knew exactly when to hold / fold...

:hurray:

- Hakrjak


It's very, very rare for people to play as a team. The people who are trying to play as a team normally don't have an edge in the first place, which is why they attempt to figure out a new way to win by colluding. Two bad players putting their strategies together isn't all the sudden going to make them any good. Also, sites have things in place so if patterns are repeated, and players sit together often, they are investigated. So ya, that's not a worry at all. The players who are good and making money wouldn't waste their time splitting money with others to cheat anyways, so it's really not a problem.
 

Peter2

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snowbank

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snowbank

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Thanx for post snowbank. Awesome work!
Im not a pokerplayer myself (don't even know how to play it), but I have a lot of friends who play online; some break even, some small green, and most lose. But from what I gather this business has a couple of things in common with the stock market: know your risk and apply risk percentage to any buy ins you wanna do, and of course a safety net of stopping out when the odds are clearly in favour of the oppononet (even though if it means losing a bit of dough). One word seems important in this, as in most businesses, Discipline!

Ya, after you have an edge, and if you have discipline it's really not gambling at all anymore. There's ups and downs, as you can see in the graph, but as long as you have the bankroll to back up the swings, in the long run you'll come out way ahead everytime as long as you have the edge.
 

Peter2

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What's your opinion on using a HUD?
 

snowbank

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Your profile says you are located in Arizona. I assume this is online poker? How exactly is this legal?

It's perfectly legal. The law changes a couple years ago were in regards to the funding of online poker by 3rd party banks. Those laws will probably be changed soon anyways(or poker regulated by the US government), but poker is legal.
 
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snowbank

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Thanks for the information.

Nearly 7,000 hands a day. How do you keep things straight in your mind? I guess it comes with practice.

I normally don't play 7k hands/day. Been trying to work real hard lately.

Ya, comes with practice. I have a pretty set approach that I have with my game/strategy, so it's not like each new hand I'm having to think in depth about. I play roughly 22% of my hands, so 78% of those hands are just folds anyways. Then based on board texture/position/# of players in the pot, deciding if a continuation bet on the flop is best is a pretty easy decision since I've seen a million boards before. If you don't take it down right there, that's when the deeper thinking occurs since at that point based on their reaction to my bet, I will try and narrow their range down based on their pf position, what they did pf, and what the board is to determine if they have a draw, or a made hand, and if it's a made hand, whether I think it's a hand that's weak enough to push them off on a later street(if I don't have a hand), or if I think my hand is better than theirs, how can I extract the maximum value from this hand. A lot of those decisions have become 2nd nature to me because of the amount of hands I play, so only maybe 20 times/hour I have a big decision to make on a hand where someone puts me to the test and I'm either not sure exactly where I'm at, or a situation where I know where I'm at, but because of a certain line they took, etc... I need to think deep about how to make sure I extract the maximum amount of value from them on the hand.
 

snowbank

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Reminds me of the movie 21, about the MIT blackjack card-counting team. If you lose concentration for even 5 minutes, you could screw up the odds and blow big bucks. You must be like a monk -- mad focus...

- Hakrjak

Ya, it takes a lot of focus. If I miss any point during a big hand, I won't know what the action was, which would be really bad since I want to know everything that happens during a hand so I'll know why certain things are happening on later streets. Sometimes playing so many tables once in a while I'll forget the pre-flop action on who raised, and it's a really big disadvantage if that happens since I want to know who was the pre-flop aggressor and if they aren't the aggressor anymore post-flop, what happened to make them give up control of the hand. Was it the board, are they trapping, do they view me as someone who will bully them post-flop...... why is it? That's why it's really important to know everything going on. So ya, once per session I might forget something on a hand, but for the most part through a lot of practice I've gotten that 'monk-like focus' down.
 

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