Best Computer Set Up for online poker ever built!!!

[powernewf]

Wow Kane...pretty neat setup you got there...

Live the dream but keep the reality check!

I have to say the third pic is probably the one that I would be proudest of!!!

Keep the blue side up!!

[BigParasite]

I totally agree with the fact that the set up impacts for a large part in how well we play. The environment is one factor we can modify; therefore, it's best to optimize it.
I've been working for years on my own set up. I own two 23" Apple Cinema screens (over a Apple PPC 2x2,7), and a 1 000 € chair. I owned a massage chair (not the 7 000$ model ), but my sister (Physical Therapist) told me it's the worst idea to spend hours in that type of chair; you turn into a vegetable because your muscles don't work. Now, my 1000 € chair is much tighter than the previous one; it holds me straight up while being very confortable.

Furthermore, I don't use a classic desk. The screens stand alone, and keyboard/mouse stand on a hospital bed table. This set up allows me to sit in different positions, more or less relaxed.

I have two extra computers on the side for alternate use, but the more important is the outside view. In front of my desk, I have a great view of the mountains. A view like that helps you to stay in a good mood.

PS : forgive my poor English, but I'm French
Here is a picture of my set-up




PS 2: my only problem is the lack of PC. Apple users are forgotten from the Online poker world. I need to upgrade to Intel Chip in order to install Windows, but I think Windows on a Mac is heresy (I'm old school Mac user since 1990).

[PADRE24]

nice setup parasite, the view looks awesome

[BigParasite]

Thanks Padre
As you can see, it's a very different setup than Kane, but I'm a web professional, needing computers for other stuff than poker.
Next step is to replace the 23" by 30", and finally decide to downgrade to Windows, in order to be able to play poker elsewhere than PokerStars and Full Tilt (the only OS X friendly poker softwares).

And yes, I love my view It's very... inspiring.

[kanethedog]

Just got back from vegas..wow what a dream that place is. I gotta say this..the sit and goes in the last few weeks of the series are super super weak. For any successful online sit and go player the series sit and goes are a cake walk.

Big things i learned...wow ..where do i start...beign there for a month and a half and just living and breathing poker really changed my game. The differnces between live and online poker are pretty big..but there are huge differnces in tournaments based on buy in...for example 1500 buy ins are full of super fish..poker tourists..5000 buy in are mostly pros. One thing i also learned..there are many fishy live pros. I came back with a pretty good profit..came a few times close to striking it rich..and had an incredible experience and learned a lot.


One of the highlights of the trip for me was busting out Phil Helmuth in a mixed event...what a treat. I played around 4 big pots with him before finally busting him out. He was sitting right to my right. i love sitting next to top pros who are aggressive when they are on my right. Phil that night was playing real aggresive cuz he was playing in two events at once (running back and forth) and this event he cared less about than the other one across the room.

SO regarding my set up. WHen i got back i upgraded to best possible wireless keyboard mouse and numeric pad. I also bought myself 600 dollar padded carrying case for my system. Relaly cool case..the 30 inch monitor and cpu fit in the same wheeled case. the case fits perfectly in the back seat of my airplane...here is the thing..while in vegas the thing i missed most about my home was the computer system...next time i travel im taking it with. taking a system with a 3o inch monitor is a big investment..but i am commiteed...the only way vegas was a losing proposition was playing online poker at night high stakes sit and goes on a 17 inch laptop..sucked. Really became homesick at that point.

Also i decided to upgrade my memory to max 8 gigs..but here is the bad part..when i got back system back from computer shop today (gotta be done before 5 before tourneys start)..i found out the hard way that in order to use all this memor i have to upgrade to 64bit operating system either xp 64 or vista 64...he said some programs may not work...i asked this guy will poker edge work and he said i dunno. Do any of you guys use poker edge with a 60 bit system?

[powernewf]

Good to hear from you again Kane... and thanks for providing some insight into the live world of vegas!!

I don't know for certain about the 64-bit compatibility but email Chad at support@poker-edge.com and, if anyone can tell you, he's the man!


Mad props for busting out the Brat too!!!! I woulda been super pumped!

[JohnnyTropic]

I run xpPro64 and PE works fine sites I play both tourney and cash.

[John007]

KaneThe dog
thank you for the insight from your experience at the wsop
Ive got goose bumps all over just reading that post
Im never going to be much good at this poker as much as i try inpatience is my thing
but its great reading off people success at our web site
good luck and may it continue
envious John from sydney
ps make the ozzie millions in january you can pick me up at sydney airport as you fly to melbourne
once again fantastic

[PADRE24]

Great Story Kane. 3 guys from our home game play in the smaller buy-in tourneys at the WSOP and I'm hopefully going up there with them next year.

[Psi]

Just got back from vegas..wow what a dream that place is. I gotta say this..the sit and goes in the last few weeks of the series are super super weak. For any successful online sit and go player the series sit and goes are a cake walk.

Big things i learned...wow ..where do i start...beign there for a month and a half and just living and breathing poker really changed my game. The differnces between live and online poker are pretty big..but there are huge differnces in tournaments based on buy in...for example 1500 buy ins are full of super fish..poker tourists..5000 buy in are mostly pros. One thing i also learned..there are many fishy live pros. I came back with a pretty good profit..came a few times close to striking it rich..and had an incredible experience and learned a lot.

?

great story. I'm surprised there are so many weak players that would put up $1500. And how are they live pros if they are fishy. I've been to vegas many times, and from my experience, playing 1/2 live is like playing 0.10/0.25 online, in terms of the plays being made. 1/2 live does not resemble 1/2 online at all. I'd venture to say that anybody who is a consistent live 1/2 winner (but not higher) will find themselves losing if they try to jump into 1/2 online. So it doesn't surprise me at all that you would say such things about the high buy in sit and goes.

[PADRE24]

A few guys from our home game played in some events and said the $500 SNG's were as soft as the $5 SNG's online

[kanethedog]

THe only problem was for example a 500 sit and go would take 2.5 hours to complete live. It was really an endurance test and took so much patience to play live. Many of the online players lack patience when playing live..and the reason is you are sitting at the same table for hours and hours..and inevitably you get bored and want to play hands.

When you play online you see many more hands an hour, you can play multiple talbes, and if you get bored you can surf the web, watch TV, or talk on the phone. Its easier to be patient..live its almost torture..i would just drink a lot of alohaul to cope

Even though the 500 live are soft and seem profitable..if you got a lets say 15 percent ROI you are only making 65 an hour playing 500 sit and goes. Also there is a lot of variance since you can only play 2 or 3 a day.

Many nights i found myself up at the hotel room playing online on my laptop because of this. To me playing online is definately a lot more comfortable..and at times more profitable because you can play many more games in the same time....

Oh one more thing..the sit and goes were much weaker as the main event approached compared to the beginning of june. But the price for this was huge lines waiting for sit and goes to start. THe way to get around this was to play high buy in..for example $1000 dollar buy ins most people in ine were not willing to play..so if they started a 1k you could play without waiting...same with 500s.

What got me was all these people waiting for 170 buy ins to start. 170 buy ins are a joke..you only get 1000 in chips and the blinds go up faster than in a 500 so they are basically a crapshoot..and remember they take a LONG time..so even the best sit and go player is only making 15 an hour playing these.

So the recomendation is for minimum 500 buy ins cuz of starting chips..blind structure etc. You start with 2000 in chips for $500 and 4000 in chips for $1000 by the way.

One guy who i befriended and we talked regularly is a proffessional online sit and go player who comes to the series every year and concentrates on sit and goes for the whole duration of the series ..he claims to make close to 100k each year. I thought about doing this..but decided playing live sit and goes was a serious grind...i mean you really start to get sick of them..and it really starts to seem like work. But if all you want to do is make some money..i think they are consistent money and a good bet

[kanethedog]

Live Pros:

Here are some examples:

Very deep in a NL i raised under the gun 3x with JJ..Perry Freeman (ft live pro) next to act called the raise with A6 suited (??) for a 6th of his stack with 7 players next to act behind him...super weak...my bad luck the flop came with low cards and 2 spades on it ..and Perry went all in with me as a 40 60 dog and hit his flush..yikes...believe it or not this hand was worth around 50k. if i would have won it i would have been chipleader and final table destined in a ESPN televised table..it would have changed my life to win that hand...instead i ended up shortstacked and wildly on tilt to be busted out 15 minutes later...yowsers what a haunter.

Ft pro Roland de Wolf raised from the cut off with K6 of clubs i knew he had been playing loose..so reraised him with AQ suited...roland flat called (yuck)...the flop came with a ace and 2 clubs..Roland checked i continuation bet weak trying to lure him in..with the flush draw..roland went all in and i called and this time it held up. Roland was knocked out and complained how i played the hand. I said shoot me in the head if i ever play K6 suited that bad. Roland was so mad i thought he was going to take a swing...by the way i had the pleasure (sarcastic) of sitting next to that guy for 2 hours..very arrogent for no reason..in my mind he is a terrible player.

Phil Hellmuth..super shark right? Super shark raises from the button in a lmit event with A6 i reraise, he reriases and we cap it...the guy has got A6..and A comes on the flop. Let me just interject that i have a lot of respect for his guy and his play..i have no idea why he was playing so bad at this particular event..but he was...if it wastn Phil Hellmuth i would call him a donk.

I check it, he raises it, he reraises, i call.

The 6 came on the turn..I check, he bets i call.

The Q comes on the river..we cap it..and i take most of his stack....

Later phil helmuth would get in the middle of a reraising frenzy with A9 suited...the guy to his right had QQ, i had KK...he sucked out on us and won with a 9 high staight.

Here is a funny one..in the 5k no limit i found myself early in the tournament sitting with FT pro Thomas Walroos sitting to my right. At one point i got dealt AQ suited in the big blind. Walroos raised from the button..i flat called. Flop comes all low cards..i check called walroos's continuation bet...we both checked the turn. The river comes and i decide to bluff and bet out close to pot sized, about a fifth of walroos's stack...walroos thinks and thinks and then calls. I think for sure my AQ is beat? Right? Walroos turns over A7 off...yuck..no pair and my ace high is better than his ace high. Walroos had to take a walk to cool down after this one..his memorable quoate after the hand "NOthing like a good value bet in the morning" (referring to my bluff with aq which ironically turned out to be a value bet). .i played with Walroos through out the day and repeatedly saw him do hero calls like this..sometimes successful..sometimes very unsucessful. Walroos was a great player with major leaks in his game that could easily be fixed i think if he cared enoough. My idea of Walroos was very successful cash game player who had little patience for the tournament grind.

Deep in a 5k NL an unknown live pro who was tournament chip leader raised from early positon, another person called...i was in the big blind with a big stack with 2 red aces. I reraised up to 8k not excited about getting involved with the one guy at the table who could knock me out..but he called.

THe flp comes A 8 3 rainbow....i check..he bets out 15k...gulp..my heart is racing this is going to be huge pot that will most likely make me tournament leader. I flat call slow playing.

Turn comes a Q...i pray he has pocket queens..i check he checks.

River comes a 10...i bet out 20k..he goes all in..i instacall...no way this guy has KJ right?

He calls and turns over KJ off for the straight..the only hand that beat me....this was the worst beat of my life..and it all came because i thought there is no way this guy raised from early positon with KJ, and then called a reraise...no way. It was hard to walk back to the room after this hand...i thought my knees would buckle..that night i couldnt sleep...this beat changed my whole perspective and i was ready to go home but stayed. I was totally sick of grinding it out for hours and sometimes days only for fate to take it all away in one miserable hand...and then return to the room with nothing. Live play is brutal because of all the hours and hours you invest..most of the times for notta.

Here is the thing..these live pros are playing fishy..especially ealry on in the tourney. Why? They are impatient and want to double up. They want to play with a big stack and dont want to sit around all day in some stupid 1.5k without having serious chances to final table early. Also a lot of times pros will make calls to what they percieve as amatuers with the hopes of outlplaying them later. This results from all the super fish at the table..especially early in the event. Also they make weak plays and weak calls hoping to use intangibles like instincts and reads as a saving grace later. Also..a great majority of these live pros are pure weak..either they are cash game players with no real tournament know how..or they became pros in a different era when simply above average play would pay off. Many of these live pros would simply not survive online...and i doubt they are even surviving live.

Most of the online players play perfect strategy..they dont do stupid stuff ealry and dont make stupid calls late. The best pros dual as online and live..they are a perfect combination of sound strategy play, and great live instincts...

Oh one more thing..it seemed to me after talking to many live pros is that its almost impossible to make a living as a live tournament player because of all the variance and the absence of high buy in events happening regularly without serious travel. So most live pros supplement tournament income with cash games or online play or even sit and go play. Big name tournament pros often times have backers who pay entry fees for a 50-60 percent split of prizes. Many up and coming live tournament players are trying to build a live tournament resume to woo a backer...pretty interesting. Its all because variance in live tournament scene is huge. To give you an idea just based on touranment income even big name pros are lucky to break even in series events. I added up just my entry fees to be 70k for the series....yowsers. One top live pro i talked too spent close to 100k in entry fees and hadnt cashed in a single event...and played 15...wow. He was ready to bust his head through the wall. The plight of a tournament player trying to make a living on pure tournament is you need a huge bankroll to make up for dryspells. A series dryspell for example can be devistating. Many many live poker players end up broke because of this..since most cant budget bankroll. The bottem line is as a live tournament pro you need a huge cash to float you..and i mean a cash of over several hundred thousand..without that and until that time it is a tough ride.

Im still trying to digest it all and make sense of some of the stupid play i saw..even from notable players. The main event is the softest high buy in touranment ever conceived...tables full of beginnners...here is a trick i learned to give you an idea how it works...the seasoned pros sign up early so they can pick there start day..the most sought after day is Sunday...i think that is day 4..the last of the start days. Why? This is the most popular day for tourists and poker amatuers to play on...so this day fills up a week before the event. Investing 10k in the main event is a very good investment...even if you chances of cashing are only 1 in 8 you gotta factor in your chances of hitting it rich. There are certain people who are spending half a million on entry fees to put tons of horses in that event..why? Wiht any descent player the main event is a good bet...and I will vouch for that...play at the main event is beyond weak...its the wild wild west of poker...but again....more than likely you will flat lose your 10k.

[JohnnyTropic]

Thank you very much Kane, I thoroughly enjoyed reading every word of it.

[dmpokerplayer]

I think part of it is that Pros expect amatuers to be intimidated by them... such that the Pros think they can get away with some speculative moves. So they push more than they should in much the same manner as you'd expect to see loose aggressive-types betting in a rebuy tourney... before the rebuy period is up.

I remember watching a Poker After Dark episode where one amateur was allowed to play with a bunch of top Pros. He played pretty tight for awhile... then bluffed a few times and finally got caught bluffing. Negreanu and 1-2 others talked about it like they were in disbelief that a tight-ish amateur would try to bluff a Pro. I remember thinking at the time that they must expect LOWLY non-pros to be wholly intimidated by them and maybe that's why they try some of the stuff they do.

But to get in a raising war with A6 or A9... that's just plain stupid... most of the time.